In a twist that would make The Professor proud, MAKEzine points out Iwan Roberts, who turned some twine and coconut husks into an incredibly cool set of faux-primitive headphones!  It doesn’t look difficult, and the end result is pure awesomeness.

The hardest part seems like it would be cramming the speakers and whatnot into the coconut husk.  Or maybe the hardest part was finding an appropriately-sized coconut outside of Jack Sparrow’s house or a hula girl’s underwear drawer.  Whatever the difficulty, it’s impressive how good and, well, official those headphones look!  Perfect for any tropical-themed rec room or for listening to the music of Don Ho.

Many years ago, DVD was languishing.  Nobody was picking up the players, and nobody was picking up the movies.  The VHS was king.  Then along came a little video game system called the PlayStation 2 and a little movie called The Matrix.  Utilizing DVD’s superior picture and sound quality, The Matrix and the PS2 blew minds in dorm rooms and game rooms across the world.  It was only a matter of time.

Blu-ray has had a rougher introduction.  Thus far, the system has been languishing behind DVDs.  For most people, there’s just been no need to upgrade to high definition as most of us still have crappy old SD TVs.  Then, along came a big budget comic book adaptation known as Watchmen.  The first week’s sales are in, and it looks like Watchmen just might be Blu-ray’s killer app.  In the first week alone, 36% of Watchmen’s sales were the Blu-ray edition!

It is a really loaded release, and the movie will look incredible in Blu-ray high definition.  Still, I’m surprised the movie is doing this well on home video when it didn’t do terribly well at the box office.  I suppose that’s the power of fandom?  Who knows.  I guess, if this is any evidence, Blu-ray is here to stay and those of us (me) who have been slow to pick up the torch best get to it.  Given that Watchmen is doing so well on BD, and the other Blu-ray releases are also selling really well, the writing is on the wall.

Tell me, loyal reader.  What movie release might make you finally go out and pick up a Blu-ray player?

Image: Sonic840 via MAKE

The multi-tool has a long and rich history.  The oldest design on record is the Harp Tool, which was carried by English longshoremen way back in the 1800’s.  Spyderco has rereleased the original Harp Tool design, with a little update for the modern day.  It has a Phillips-head screwdriver, slotted-head screwdriver, punch/awl, saw, corkscrew (probably more useful at lunch, if you catch my drift), file, gimlet, and a mini two-head hammer.

While all that stuff is still useful to the modern manual laborer, except maybe the corkscrew, the design itself leaves something to be desired.  The Swiss Army Knife design is the more common design these days, and with some way to lock the blades in place, would be more useful for the laborer, given the heft of the object makes a decent handle.  It also lends itself a little better to geek-friendly updates.

What would you have in your dream multi-tool?  I’d definitely need a screwdriver, USB drive, flashlight, mini-scissors, and possibly a box-cutter.  The corkscrew would be great, but that’d be in more of a barman’s helper.

Meet DarthGollumKong, the One-Man Rock Band.  That’s right, he plays all the instruments in Rock Band (guitar, bass, drums) and sings at the same time.  Even more impressive is the fact that while he plays all the instruments on easy, he sings on medium difficulty!  I can drum and sing on medium at the same time, but this is far beyond my level.

We all love sales, right?  WEll, NewEgg, one of the biggest places for any serious bargain hunter to shop, is having a massive blow-out sale right now.  All video games must go!  Gamer Deals has the full list of games, divided by price AND by system, so whatever you’re looking to spend and whatever you’re looking to buy for is accounted for.

I browsed briefly at the MMORPGS for PC section, and I found the AION presale box for $4.99.  Now, this is not the actual game; this is the beta testing admission for the game, which is still months from release.  If you like to try before you buy (and by all means, you should), then this is the sort of thing you should be looking for.

Source: Where I Write, via Trend Hunter

WE LANDED ON THE MOON!

It’s amazing, isn’t it?  While I was writing the above linked post about the moon landing, it struck me that what took an entire building of geniuses with slide rules to do in 1969, we could do on one personal computer today.  I firmly believe that sometime within my lifespan, we will be traveling to Mars and beyond.  Forty years ago man did the impossible; now we can do anything.

No, that’s not a typo for pyramid.  The Powramid is probably the best example of, “Why in the world didn’t I think of that?!” I’ve seen in a long time.  You know the type of thing:  take an existing product, modify it in a positive way, and re-release it.  The Powramid is forehead-slapping genius.

Take the standard power strip.  With the way they are laid out, those bulky AC adapters for gadgets use up all the space, even if every other plug is unoccupied.  The Powramid wisely adapts to this modern phenomenon by arranging the power plugs in a pyramid shape so that all five (or maybe six) plug spots are accessible by adapters of every shape and form.  Placing the on-off switch in the top of the pyramid just cements the product’s genius.

It’s the simplest idea in the world, but the implementation is stellar.  Why did it take this long for someone to come up with a way to make a power strip that takes up less space and offers more versatility?!  Surely I’m not the only person who has had the problem of too many big square plugs and not enough space for them!

With all the discussion of smart phones lately, and the fact that everyone is jumping into the apps game, I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass along the word that not all apps are created equal.  In fact, most of the apps created for these phones are pointlessly stupid things created for entertainment purposes (but that wouldn’t entertain anyone over the age of two for any length of time).  Yahoo has compiled a list of what they think are the 8 worst iPhone apps, but believe me when I tell you that this is only scratching the surface.

There are over 55,000 apps for the iPhone, and I guarantee you they’re adding hundreds of apps a week.  There’s no telling exactly how many there are right now at this very moment, and how many more applications like iNap@Work and Push the Button are waiting in the wings to take up precious space on your phone.  I guess the old addage from H.L. Mencken is true:  No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

I can only imagine what sorts of non-family friendly useless applications are out there for the iPhone.