04-30-09
Steve Eves, I Salute You – (World’s Largest Amateur Rocket)
Having made and launched a few (much smaller) rockets as a kid, I have total respect for this. And also for the name too . . .
A 1/10th-scale model of a NASA Saturn V rocket launched successfully on Saturday, becoming what is thought to be the largest amateur rocket ever to take off and be safely recovered. The feat could herald the arrival of the first amateur rockets to reach orbit.
The 11-metre-tall, 750-kilogram rocket took off on Saturday from a field outside of Price, Maryland, near the eastern shore. It flew for roughly 20 seconds to an altitude of more than 1300 metres before segmenting and falling back to Earth beneath multiple parachutes (see video).
The rocket, built by rocket hobbyist Steve Eves, replicates the look of the Saturn V rocket used to loft Apollo crew capsules into space. But its interior boasts newer electronics and significantly less fuel.
(via New Scientist)
03-27-09
Digital meets analogue, online meets offline
As the offline/analogue and online/digital worlds start to blend even more, I thought I’d share some favourite stuff I’ve been tagging over the past few months. I love this stuff and am really excited about the web weaving its way into more and more stuff.
Google Earth meets a 60ft Phallus.
Blogging meets a blackboard and goes fully analogue.
FAIL gets turned into stickers and gets stuck everywhere.
Two years of someone’s tweets get turned into a book.
Hashtags enter the real world.
Second Life inspired flying helicopter penis used by griefers to attack Gary Kasparov.
iPhone icons get turned into a coaster set.
DOS directories get turned into cushions.
Tweets get turned into bubbles.
11-18-08
Steve Jobs flipping it to IBM
Sorry, couldn’t resist posting this for a number of reasons. Here’s Steve Jobs flipping it to IBM, teaching us that invaluable lesson that anything you do offline (past, present and especially future) is more than likely to make it online – especially if you’re a world-famous CEO. And on the internet, it’s there forever. No harm done though. It’s just Steve, being human.
[Via Edible Apple]
10-24-08
Little Big Planet – Will you marry me?
Wow. Ben has just spotted this. Jed05 created a level on Little Big Planet in order to propose to his girlfriend. First, mariage proposals on Twitter, now in-game proposals. Just wow. < voiceofanoldperson> What is the world coming to? < /voiceofanoldperson>
10-24-08
“Blender Defender”
I actually think this is a bit cruel. But I appreciate the geekery involved and the website created to showcase the project. And did find it a little bit funny, if I’m being really honest.
[via @juter]
10-21-08
Feeding my Delicious habit
Today I saved my 5,000th link on Delicious. That means I’ve invested 13 hours and 45 minutes in Delicious, or thereabouts (I reckon using some fairly crude calculations on 10 seconds per save, allowing for some tag management and re-saves). I actually thought it would be more as this figure doesn’t seem that impressive, but then if I imagine sitting for 13 hours straight saving links it gets a bot bigger in my mind.
So. the big question is why bother? Well from a practical point of view, it helps me remember and find stuff I come across on the web. It’s as simple as that. It’s a big filing system that has traveled around with me from computer to computer and job to job. I actually feel naked without it, when browsing on someone else’s machine or mobile. I feed it relentlessly and I’m adamant that one day I’ll be able to extract even more use out of my bookmarks and everyone else’s bookmarks. For now though, I really do love Delicious and think it’s one of the best, most useful Web 2.0 apps that I use every day pretty much without fail.
Thoughts?
Oh and if you want to get some useful stuff, I’d personally subscribe to the feed for my stats tag. The cat stuff may geek you out a bit.
10-17-08
Nerdcore Rising
I’m pretty late to this but I’ve just finished watching Nerdcore Rising. Amazingly cool, genuine, funny collection of people and a great insight into the genre’s growth in the US. Hot Chip, Hedluv . . . we have our own hugely popular homegrown stuff too. I can’t wait until all this celebrity stuff finally goes out the window and the true rise of the nerds happens. Technology is driving huge global cultural change and nerds are finding themselves in the spotlight. And I love it (being a bit of a geek myself).
Full stream here, though be sure to check out the official site.
Official trailer below.
Here’s MC Frontalot, star of the movie and the rapper that’s held up as being the Godfather of the scene.
10-15-08
General Geekery
Whilst Suw is on ‘blogging sick leave’ I’ve been geeking out with a guest post over at Kits and Mortar. I wanted to write about cats, GPS and stuff and it turned into a rather lengthy post. The first of a few I hope, thanks Suw! It’s really funny though to be blogging away from home after so much one-on-one love with middledigit. I think that might explain the slightly different style and unusually lengthy nature. PS – if you work in PR, it’s worth reading this – what happens when someone like Suw is confronted by reams of spam from PRO’s, even after taking hte time out to write this.
In the meantime, I’ve also been doing HEAPS of Flickr trawling and stumbled across this – some awesomely geeky ink-work. I am awarding the proud owner of these tattoos full middledigit-certified geek status. The first ever award and (I have a feeling) the first of many. More geek tattoos here BTW.
10-01-08
I know I should probably keep working on this, but…
Love this [via here]. That’s me on the right that is, quite a lot of the time.
09-24-08
World of iPod: A tale of love (from Microsoft?!)
Cheeky little video this morning. Such a simple idea that a brand could have done. But it didn’t. Paul Tosolini did it. And Paul is New Media Business Manager at Microsoft, which is pretty funny given the amount of Apple kit he clearly has (and loves).
[via Lloyd on Twitter, via Chris Brogan]
middledigit_
If technology doesn't seem like magic, it's probably obsolete . . .
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I'm a digital creative/strategist/doer that blogs about all kinds of stuff that usually involves brands, digital marketing, technology or cats.