If your Mac doesn't have optical audio out, you can still enjoy Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound from your system. The Griffin FireWave is a firewire connected breakout box that delivers six discrete channels as 1/8″ mini jacks. These in turn get connected to your amplifier and then to your speakers. This unit is great for quick impromptu setups using existing desktop computer speakers. It works with DVD Player, VLC, and even Traktor DJ Studio where the 3 pairs of stereo outputs can be assigned to headphone, main, booth or record.

Best of all the unit is currently $29.99 with free shipping.

Link.

It's incredibly easy to now create your own ring tones for your iPhone without paying the 99c. Here are a few different ways to accomplish it.

1. Use GarageBand to load a track from CD or an MP3 file. Trim the song down to a reasonable length. If it's short, it's a good idea to loop it a few times and make sure the loop point sounds natural. Export the song as a “.M4A” via the share menu. Rename the file with the .M4R extension and drag into iTunes. Sync your iPhone.

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2. Use Quicktime Pro to edit/copy/paste the ring tone. Export as MPEG-4 audio. Rename the file with the .M4R extension and drag into iTunes. Sync your iPhone.

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3. Locate an existing song in your iTunes library that is .M4A format by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on the song and choose Show in Finder. Copy the song to your desktop and rename the file with the .M4R extension and drag into iTunes. Sync your iPhone.

Oscar Myer is currently promoting a new mini-sized food product and thought it a good idea to down size their wiener mobile. The new set of buns is a MINI Cooper S with the traditional red and yellow paint job with a ginourmous bun and hot dog on top. Catch the video for a quick making of. Watch out for the hot dog related humor.
No word yet on Dawn Wiener's reaction.

Link.

Brit electro synth-pop Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke Yazoo are back together to promote a new 4 disc box set of their early and short-lived work together. They have announced U.S. tour dates, two of which are in New York July 16 and 17, 2008.

Link to Yazoo's official site.

Check out these photos by Bernard Zee from the 2007 San Francisco Fleetweek airshow. There are some really stunning pictures like the one to the right which shows visual distortion from the shock wave of the aircraft. Amazing!

Link. Thanks, Jim!

Thanks Flickr, you always come through.

The Mosquito Ringtone came about after a crafty British man who invented a device called The Mosquito, the Mosquito is a device that emits a very high frequency tone meant to annoy teenagers (adults are unable to hear the tone). Some crafty students decided to convert the same technology into a ring tone that only they (teenagers) could hear! By utilizing this free ringtone, you can get phone calls and receive text messages while in class or school without teachers knowing it.

The highest frequency I could hear was 16.7khz. Maybe it's my speakers. You?

Link. (image by gravitywave via Flickr)

I've heard stories that this was possible, but never actually saw evidence of it. High voltage power lines carry such an enormous amount of power that they give off a large magnetic field. In this case, large enough to light florescent tubes. I read a little backstory on this; the tubes don't glow very bright, these are all long exposures. But, the proof is there.

More information can be found here.

Link. Via Gizmodo

Sometimes you see a demonstration for something seemingly impossible that is a bit mind bending in the simplicity and elegance of the solution.

In the following two videos, you'll see how you can safely transport a computer without interrupting the power or shutting it off as well as dispelling the myth of RAM memory loosing contents as soon as the power is cut leading to the ultimate downfall of whole disc encryption.

These techniques demonstrate that for every difficult problem there's a simplistic answer.

WiebeTech HotPlug demonstration
Princeton University demos cold shot RAM scraping.

A series of dog-themed products available at Cafe Press, in the style of OBEY.

Link. Thanks, Jeff!