Merry (nano) Christmas?

Photo: National Physical Laboratory

The UK's NPL (National Physical Laboratory), is celebrating the holidays this season, with the creation of a nano snowman. Constructed of two tin beads, facial features milled with a focused ion beam, and a nose made of ion beam deposited platinum. It is 1/5th the width of a human hair. See how they do it HERE.

Is it just me? I thought snowmen had three sections.

Shanadoo - Launch Party!!!

2 years after the release of The Symbol, Shanadoo releases another album, Launch Party!!!. The latest compilation seems to stray from the heavier Techno/Eurobeat of the previous releases. They have also slowly transitioned from being German produced to Japanese. Don't forget to check out their first album Welcome to Tokyo.

Off the new CD:  Love Space Ship | World's End Supernova | Next Life

Steampunk Keyboards

Saw a G4 episode on Steampunk last night. One of the cooler things I think is the Steampunk keyboard. So, I though I would collect a few pictures and post them here. If you want to make your own Steampunk keyboard, amongst other Steampunk creations, check out The Steampunk Workshop.

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Iwako Erasers

Iwako erasers seem to have become popular in our area. I just saw these the other day on Amazon, a few days later my wife found and bought some at a local toy store. The detail is quite amazing. Some come with stickers you have to put on yourself for more realism. I'm not sure how practical they are a erasers, as I have not tested them yet, though I am thinking they are not meant to be used for erasing anything. The Japanese website is HERE. The English is HERE.

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Redneck or Practical?

When I showed this to my wife the first word she said was redneck. All I know is, we get tired of emptying the stock shredder bin every other day. Sure I had to bypass a safety feature, but as long as you are careful, you can shred till the thing overheats. Best of all it goes right in a trash bag.

Google launches a Japanese IME converter.

Google has launched a Japanese typing converter (IME) for the language bar. Once installed it sits right along side the built in converter from Microsoft, giving you the choice to revert back if you want to. One thing I wish it did, that The Microsoft IME doesn't do either, is let me select Hiragana as my default input for every application. Why it defaults to "direct input" all the time, I do not know. If someone could tell me how to choose an input method, other than "direct input" as my default, please help. Get it HERE.

Google 日本語入力は、変換の煩わしさを感じさせない思いどおりの日本語入力を提供します。

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