I am a photographer from the Netherlands, specializing in high speed photography. I use a normal flash to achieve very short illuminations. The most critical parameter in this kind of photography is timing, which is achieved by computer control of shutter, flash, valve, gun or whatever other device is used. These kind of images require a lot of experimentation, dedication, patience and willingness to endlessly clean spill of liquids and debris from objects shot to pieces. Several hundreds of trial shots may be needed to get timing correct. After that, the process is pretty well controlled, and often half of the shots will be usable, with 1 out of 10 really interesting.

The idea itself is adopted from German cities like Essen and Cologne, and will be a way for prostitution to continue on behind closed, uh, doors. The boxes will serve as quickie drive-throughs, so-to-speak, and will free up city streets from unsightly acts that haunt Zurich residents whose homes overlook the city's red light district. "They get up to all sorts in broad daylight - and we're sick to death of looking at it," one resident told the U.K.'s Metro.

PS3 homebrew jailbreak released into the wilds originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 05:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This hand crafted and body safe (7-inch) silicone dildo is more detailed than any dildo you have ever seen before. The artists not only have sculpted an insane monstrosity for you from the influence of some of your favorite horror classics... but they also hand paint each dildo to give it personality, and gruesome reality. It is a labor of love to make these phalo-horrors, so they're not cheap. But they are, in 2 words, perfectly horrific.

the minimalist construction is based on the existing piaggio APE 50 three wheeled light transport vehicle; a model chosen for its economic and fuel efficient benefits. 'my aim was to give people a better understanding of the country, the surrounding, and the range they have travelled. the travelling vehicle is always with you like some kind of a base camp, while also being used for moving on in an easygoing and spontaneous way. 'bufalino' encourages users to explore the surrounding off beaten tracks. meanwhile the furnished interior consisting of a bed, two seating units, a cooking zone, a basin, storage space, a water tank and a refrigerator offers the comforts of a home.

Reddi-Bacon (1964) was precooked and there was very little extra fat involved when the foil packets were heated. However, there was occasional slight leaking from torn or damaged foil packages, and that undoubtably caused some smoking and ruined toasters. The problems with the packaging was vexing enough to the company that Reddi-Bacon never really made it out of test markets before the product was pulled from the market.

Last week, we joined the rest of the news and blog world in worrying about what Verizon and Google's net neutrality "deal" would mean for the future of the Internet. Now, the two companies iterated a spirit of openness, but it's too early to sigh in relief yet.

Though I claim to be a photographer I don't own a printer. I can't stand dealing with ink cartridges or printer profiles. Instead, I rely on Costco Photo for most, if not all, of my photo printing needs.

Costco is the cheapest place I have found that prints on high quality Fuji archival photo paper in sizes up to 20" x 30". At $9.99 for a 20"x30" print, it's 1/3rd the cost of the previously reviewed Pictopia (though, admittedly, they lack the same range in sizes). You do not need a membership to use the Costco Photo Center service on-line but it necessitates that the prints are shipped to you. Larger prints are shipped rolled in a tube. If you are a Costco member you are allowed to use custom color profiles while also adding the option of picking up your order at the nearest Costco which can cut down on turn-around time.

I have heard on forums that Costco Photo Centers vary significantly in quality, and that some labs are run incredibly well and are capable of producing results equivalent to far more expensive services, while others have wonky colors with less than dedicated staff. In my experience, if I ever have a problem with a photo, no matter how minor, they are very, very quick to reprint while also letting me keep both (which is a nice bonus).

Costco Photo Center
20"x30" print on Fuji archival photo paper
$10

Available from Costco Photo Center

This is a kitchen contraption to rival all kitchen contraptions if we've ever seen it - a flower pot and butcher block combined into a smoker. Why build your own? Commercial egg-style smokers can be expensive, and if you're looking to smoke something a bit smaller than they can handle, this DIY flower pot smoker may work great for you.

Check out the build guide at the link below for step-by-step build instructions and lots of pictures on how to make your own Flower Pot Smoker..

Via Lifehacker at Little Blue Egg

An ice cream which gets you in the mood for sex has been created in the UK. The Sex Pistol, dubbed 'vice cream', will be available from London store Selfridges when pop-up ice cream boutique The Icecreamists opens in September. The cold treat has ingredients including gingko, biloba, arginine and guarana as well as a shot of the intoxicating La Fee Absinthe. "the perfect apres shopping treat. Just one Sex Pistol will leave you feeling energized and confident - but please, don't pester the staff!" The ice cream will only be served to customers over 18 and each consumer is only allowed one in every visit.

Continue reading ChouChou Electric Butterfly flutters to life inside a jar

ChouChou Electric Butterfly flutters to life inside a jar originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Droid X can now be counted among the rooted (update: video!)

Droid X can now be counted among the rooted (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whether or not you view these guys as brilliant schemers or common criminals, 10 of them got caught and are going on trial next month. But now that the trial is about to begin, they've released the above footage of the crime itself.

In this tutorial, we will be continuing from where we left off with the “hello world” application.  This time adding a graphical user interface (GUI) and a “toast”. The GUI will consist of a button, textbox and a label. The “toast” will be issued onto the screen when the button is pressed.

Some may wonder what a toast is.  Well, for non-programmers, a toast is a text notification that for the most part is used only to display an error on the screen (I am a big fan of using toasts instead of an alert on the screen as its less intrusive).  For this article we will use a toast to display a message on the screen that will take the text in the textbox and issue a “Hello Greg” onto the bottom of the screen.  After this article completed you will be able to successfully make toast commands, design the layout of the hello world program, and pull text from a textbox.

We are going to start off by copy our existing Hello World project so that we can use the original in every way but have two separate projects to show the difference and both can be used as references.  To do this we will right click on the root of our HelloWorld project in the right hand pane (Navigation Explorer), navigate to copy (not Copy Qualified Name) and click it.  Then find a blank space in the Navigation Explorer, right click again and click paste.  You will be asked to supply a new name for this project and whether to use the default location.  We will name the new project ImprovedHelloWorld and we will leave the checkbox checked that says “use default location”.  Press OK and the new project will be generated from the old one.

The first thing we are going to accomplish is changing the strings.xml file to add another node under app_name.  We will do this by copying the node above it and pasting the copied material directly under the last </string> element.  Then we will change the name of the string to press and in between we will write Press Me!.  Next we will alter the hello node and change the text to say Enter Your Name Here: instead of Hello Android, Hello World!. This being accomplished we now need to design the GUI (Graphical User Interface).

To do this navigate to main.xml and we are going to go over what everything does up to this point.  We first off have a node called LinearLayout which essentially creates a space for adding objects such as textboxes, buttons and the like and will format the layout for us.  So LinearLayout will organize one thing right after the other in a one column and one row type of deal.  Next we have a TextView which in any other label we could call a label.  Now to go over what all of the parameters are in the nodes we just mentioned.  android:layout_width & android:layout_height are used to determine what will happen to an object when it is used within a layout.  There are two options when using this and they are fill_parent or wrap_content.  fill_parent will do exactly as it states, it will size the object so that it will fill the screen either vertically or horizontally.  wrap_content will format the object to expand or shrink to the size of the content displayed within.  Both of these variables can be used in many different objects including but not limited to Layouts, Text Views, Text Boxes, and Buttons.  android:text is used in certain objects like TextViews and TextBoxes to display text to the user.  As of right now, we are presenting the user with text but calling it from strings.xml instead of entering the text right in the node itself.  To reference strings.xml all that is needed is to put @string/press, where press is the name of your variable, inside the quotations.

Now that we are familiar with the terms, we will need to modify this to first house a label, textbox and finally a button.  To do this we will simply add a textbox and button since we already took care of the label in the string.xml.  To add a Textbox we will start on a new line under ending of the <TextView /> node.  Just to be clear I will add code inline and explain why we are adding it afterwards. <EditText android:id=”@+id/helloName” android:layout_width=”fill_parent” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” />.  EditText will be our textbox in this instance.  Also when giving items an ID it is best to follow these practises of adding @+id/ before your variable name which makes it possible to tie into your .java file later.  Next we will add <Button android:id=”@+id/go” android:layout_width=”fill_parent” android:layout_height=”wrap_content” android:text=”@string/press” /> directly underneath the ending of our EditText node.  Notice we are referencing the string.xml and calling the node that says Press Me! which will appear on our button now.  If you were to run this project now you would be able to see the layout of the program we just made but we are unable to get it to do anything except enter text in the textbox.

This next section will contain a lot of code and I will provide most of the screenshots of the code to help you through.  First, it is good to realize every time you would like to reference an object in your layout we need to import it.  We will need to add imports for our button and textbox.  We can do that bu adding these lines of code to the imports section at the top:

import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;

After that we will need to include four more imports, the first being for event listen to add to our button, the second will be for the toast that we will call when the event handler runs, the third being the context of the application and the fourth to get the view of the application and handle the layout and interaction.  These imports can be added under the previous ones and will look like this:

import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.Toast;
import android.content.Context;
import android.view.View;

After these are added to your imports we are ready to get into coding the event handler for our button and the onCreate functions, which is called when the program is started.  To make things easier and to complement the screenshot, I will post the rest of the code and explain what the important lines are doing and why we are using them.

public class HelloMain extends Activity {
EditText helloName;

We are creating a reference to our textbox above any function so that it only has to be declared once but instantiated many times if need be.

/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
// Capture our button from layout
Button button = (Button)findViewById(R.id.go);
// Register the onClick listener with the implementation above
button.setOnClickListener(mAddListener);
}

Above we capture the button from the layout using a variable.  With this variable we are going to assign it an onClick Event Handler as shown on the last line above.  Below we are creating the Event Handler for it to be hooked in above.  After creating this function it will be able to pull the text from the TextBox and display it with static text.

// Create an anonymous implementation of OnClickListener
private OnClickListener mAddListener = new OnClickListener()
{
public void onClick(View v)
{
long id = 0;
// do something when the button is clicked
try
{
helloName = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.helloName);

Here we instantiate the TextBox we declared earlier and capture the Textbox in the layout by finding it by the ID that we gave it.

Context context = getApplicationContext();
CharSequence text = "Hello " + helloName.getText() + "!";
int duration = Toast.LENGTH_LONG;
Toast toast = Toast.makeText(context, text, duration);
toast.show();

The above code will take Context (the facet to our applications enviroment) and and add it to our Toast along with our dynamic CharSequence text and the length the Toast will appear onscreen, which in this case we want it to be longer.  It is key to note how to make a Toast as it is more efficient that popping up textboxes to the user as well as it is less distracting.

}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Context context = getApplicationContext();
CharSequence text = ex.toString() + "ID = " + id;
int duration = Toast.LENGTH_LONG;
Toast toast = Toast.makeText(context, text, duration);
toast.show();
}
}
};
}

The last thing we are doing for this function is putting all the important stuff mentioned above into a try catch statement which will try our important code and if there is an error it will display a Toast letting us know there was an error and a message about that error.  For functions such as these is it crucial to have precautions in place to catch errors and not have a program force close.  It is important to put the user first in thinking about UI and any error messages that might occur.  If an error somehow sneaks into your program try catch statements will catch the error and make it “cute and fuzzy” for the user.

Top half of code:

Bottom half of code, elapsed by previous view of code:

After we have coded the main content for our .java file, we can now proceed to run the application and view our completed Improved Hello World program.  Notice that when you press the button and your textbox has not text in it that the program will still function correctly.  This is a good feature to have so that you don’t start seeing Toasts containing error messages.  The completed product should look like this when the button is pressed:

This would conclude our Improved Hello World example but the learning is far from over.  Next post we will examine Databases and a look into some simple queries as well as building a database from the ground up.  As always, if you have any problems with coding this article, feel free to leave a comment and I will assist in any way possible! If you can’t wait for the next post you can read up on databases before the next posting.  Until next time, Happy Hacking!

This article will focus on developing a simple hello world program for android using Java. Google has recently released a “cute and fuzzy” programming environment for beginners to get into but I haven’t had the chance to try it, so we will be focusing on the Eclipse IDE here, which you should have set up in the last post.  When creating a text based project there are two very important items.  It will involve creating an android project, going through the necessary steps to complete both the (1) XML files and the (2) Java file and get this project ready for production and eventually deployment.  The requirements of this project are simple, know the basis of XML (for new comers if you don’t that’s OK too, you will learn) and know Java (very basic knowledge but you will learn as we go and we will modify a few parts of the java file today).

Start by firing up Eclipse and clicking File, New then Project. We are going to navigate to Android folder and select Android Project and click next. If you have updated your Android SDK correctly, your next screen will look like this. This screen requires we enter all data correctly including Project Name, Build Target, Application Name, Package Name, Create Activity, and Min SDK Version. These are important terms to know because they will control what keywords you can access and what your project looks like when you first create it. So to summarize:

• Project Name: Will be the name you would like to use for your new project. In this instance we will use “HelloWorld” (I am a programmer and loath spaces you might choose to have them but it shouldn’t make a difference)
• Build Target: This will specify what API you will be utilizing in your projects. It is key to choose wisely or you may lose out on a wider audience than anticipated. It is always best to think of what your program will use and see if a lower build will support those functions before cornering yourself with a higher API. For this program we are going to choose Android 1.5
• Application Name: Will be the name you choose for your Application to be called. This can be changed later on and for right now we make that field equal Hello World.
• Package name: The package name will consist of your company’s standard package name that you would use or in my case I use my entrepreneurial one. For this I am entering in com.gregrjacobs.helloworld but you can enter in anything you wish. Also, make sure it is in all lower case for good coding practices.
• Create Activity: You will want to make sure that the box is checked before Create Activity because this option will do most of the work you just have to give it a name. NOTE: do not call this “Activity” as your project will cease to function and you have to go through the pain of making it all over again or manually correcting it. I am going to use HelloMain as my activity name, again use what you wish though.
• Min SDK Version: This will have to be a number you enter denoting the platform you would like to target and if this application will show up in the marketplace of certain devices. If you look to the build target devices after platform tab on Android 1.5 you will see the number 3 and that will be our minimum SDK Version. Once everything is filled out press Finish.

This will create the core of our project ranging from the Android 1.5 JAR file to our Java and XML files. The most important things right now are the files in the src/com.gregjacobs.helloworld/ folder and the files in the res/ folder. First we will look at the main.xml which is located in res/layout/. This file will hold the layout of your application including textboxes, labels, dateTimePickers and the like. In the main.xml we will see that we are using a LinearLayout which will organize items into a single row or column. This can be handy sometimes (other times not so much) and for this example it will work, so leave it like this because we will be displaying text so it makes no difference. Next is the strings.xml file which will conveniently house
all of strings in the application. This is especially useful to keep the clutter out of your Java and main.xml file. We are actually going to change the string called “hello” from Hello World, HelloMain! to Hello Android, Hello World! And our string named app_name can stay how it is.

After doing this we are going to navigate to the package name we created and open HelloMain.java and this will contain the code to run the XML files we were just looking at. The first line will contain our package name that the java file is associated with. Next, in the picture above, we have imported the OS bundle and the activity function that will run our app. Later on when we explore adding textboxes and labels we will be importing widgets into our files and we will put the imports just under these two shown above. Next is our class that basically says when the application starts up, set the view of the screen to the layout labeled main. This is interesting in the sense that you can design many different layouts depending on the state you application is in. Of course with a hello world program we only need this one layout but the option is there for you to experiment with.

When we are done tweaking everything we wanted, we are going to build the application and run it on the emulator we created last post. To do this we go to the top of the eclipse screen and navigate to the button that looks like thisand press it. This will prompt you to say what type of project you would like to run. We want to run an Android Application and press ok.
The emulator should pop up onto your screen and load up. The first load time of your emulator will be atrocious but after that you should have no problems with load. When the emulator is done loading it may ask you to press Menu to unlock, do so by pressing menu just under the screen. You don’t have to navigate to load your project it will do it by itself it just has to load the rest of the software and you should end up with a result like this:

When working with tools like the eclipse IDE and AndroidSDK, making simple text based programs is a breeze. The next post coming to this series will get somewhat more difficult by developing an improved Hello World program. If anyone had any problems with this today make sure to leave a comment and I will try to get back to you before the next post. If you can’t wait to look ahead to designing an interface for your android application or looking into databases, these are the places to go; Data Storage and User Interface. Until next post, happy hacking.

People don’t seem to mind paying a few bucks to use a public toilet, so designer Fabian Brunsing figured the same idea would fly when applied to a park bench. The idea is pretty simple, just insert 0.50 Euros and a rather unpleasant looking set of spikes retract providing a comfortable place to sit. I just hope there’s some kind of audible timer or warning for when your funds are about to run out.

Update: So with my MacBook unmuted it turns out there is indeed a warning alarm in that video. Thanks ‘relawson’.

[ Vimeo - PAY & SIT: the private bench ] VIA [ Neatorama ]

Geocron lets Latitude automate your life, or at least your wife originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.