These are great "Dark" takes on classic Disney imagery. Beauty and the Beast looks particularly sinister, which is great!
See the rest of the images over at io9!
Gadgets, comics, running... It's all good.
At the office where I work, I had found a supply of epoxy that the hardware engineers use for various purposes. This epoxy comes in little packets, with each packet composed of two pouches containing different substances that, when mixed together, produce the hardening epoxy. I knew about the supply of epoxy for a while, but I hadn't made the connection between the epoxy and the flash drives until one day, in a moment of total enlightenment, I held up my flash drive in one hand, and an epoxy packet in the other, and began to laugh uncontrollably.Hit up Dmitry's post for the full rundown on how to turn your regular thumb drive to an indestructible epoxy drive. Got your own methods? Let's hear 'em in the comments.
That same day, I took an ordinary USB flash drive, removed the plastic case so that the PC board was completely exposed, mixed up some epoxy, and poured it onto both sides of the board, making sure that all the electronic components were fully covered, and only the USB connector exposed. After about 5 minutes the epoxy hardened, and the result was even better than I hoped. The flash drive became indestructible!
Heat a large saucepan on a high heat. Once it is hot add the whole seeds and toast them until they sizzle and crackle. Now add the oil and then add the chopped onions and reduce the heat to low. You can optionally add 1 or 2 Whole Star Anise which help bring out the sweetness of the onions and imparts a subtle aniseed flavour but remove them once the onions are cooked. Cook the onions gently and slowly until they turn a golden brown colour.
Make a paste of the ginger puree, garlic puree, curry powder, Turmeric powder, Chilli powder, with a little water. Add to saucepan and stir in well and fry for a couple of minutes.
Now add your 800g Cooked Chicken Tikka stir in well.
Mix the Yogurt, Tomato Puree, Onion Puree, together in a jug with the water or stock and pour into the saucepan and mix in well. Turn up the heat until the sauce begins to simmer and leave to simmer for 10 Minutes. Stir occasionally.
Finally sprinkle in the Garam masala and stir in well for the final 2 minutes of cooking. Garnish with the 1 Small onion, 2 Deseeded Tomatoes, chopped into a very fine dice and serve.
Enjoy!I’m into running. I make no apologies for it. There’s nothing better than going for a long run. What makes it even better though is the amount gadgetry available to use while you’re running. Heart rate monitors, GPS equipment, etc. But for those of us who can’t justify splashing out at least £150 plus on toys, there are always free Smartphone applications.
Last year I used Nokia Sports Tracker on my N95 8GB, which was great. So good, I seriously considered only Nokia’s for my next phone choice. But, I decided to jump the S60 ship and landed with my HTC Dream (AKA Google G1) which uses the Android operating system.
The first thing I did was search the App Market for running apps, and a few came up. I installed a couple apps and tried them out but my favourite was Buddy Runner (BR).
Buddy Runner is a GPS tracking app with a nice, simple UI. In the app itself, three tabs are visible at the top of the Screen; Workout, Map and History (my version doesn't have the settings tab as shown in the screenshot. to access settings i press the menu button).
The workout Tab shows you your Time, Distance and Pace (these can be shown in Km or Miles). In the settings panel you can change how your pace is calculated (from start, last few sec, etc). You can also set audio feedback – a nice lady will tell you your time, pace and distance every 0.5 miles, 1 mile or every 10mins, etc, depending on your preference. Personally, I turned audio feedback off. I keep my phone in a belt when i'm running so don't hear the audio notifications all the time.
The GPS is surprisingly good. With my old Nokia Sports Tracker, it would take around a minute or so before it locked but (at most) 30 seconds and Buddy runner is locked and ready to go. The map is obviously linked to Google Maps – enough said there. Again they keep things simple in the History tab too. It displays your activities to date (showing date, time & distance). You cans select an activity to expand it and show the activity details such as date, time, distance, pace, calories burned and status, which leads me onto to the good stuff.
If it wasn’t enough having a great free GPS tracking app on your phone, once you’ve finished a run, the software will automatically upload the run details and store on your own Dashboard, then email you with a link to the site. If you know your username the dashboard is easy to find as it’s www.buddyrunner.com/USERNAME.
You can see from the screenshot you get some nice graphs. Once you’ve added a few you can compare runs, see your personal bests set when using BR, etc. Another great feature is the ability to post updates on your runs to Facebook, Twitter or Friendfeed.
I’ve been out a few runs now with Buddy Runner and I still think it’s great. In comparison to Nokia Sports Tracker, you can’t get the same depth of analysis of your runs, but the UI, even that on the BR site, is a lot cleaner, simpler and easier to follow. As a cheap and simple alternative to that Garmin GPS gadget you’ve always wanted, it’s a must.
The trail sticker on the BR website banner suggests that the free period may be up soon. How long the free trial will last I’m not sure. What I do know is that if it’s not too expensive (i.e. just a few pounds), I’d buy it.
Go to www.buddyrunner.com and see what you think.
Happy running!
Around 18 months ago I was introduced to the Marvel Universe and since then I haven't looked back. I love reading stories from all eras. The whole history of how the universe and its characters have evolved and interacted never ceases to amaze me.
Up until a week ago i'd only ever read Marvel titles. I started to wonder why I hadn't explored other areas, but it doesn't help when the people who introduced you to comics are Marvel fanboys though.
So, how could I take that first step away? Where do I start?
Twitter.
Most of the people I follow on twitter are comic book writers, artists or likeminded fans. So, hopefull that i'd get at least one response, I sent out a tweet asking for help to broaden my comic horizons and for suggestions of non Marvel comics to buy when I'm at comicon in a few weeks time.
It started slow, but with the help of @ohsuperheroine, who sent a message out to her followers about me, I got a flood of reponses. To say I was pleased was an understatement. It was great that so many people were willing to "share the comic book love" (as one twitterer put it) and suggest their favourite titles.
I know have a long long list of comics to look out for when I'm carefully flicking through issues at London Comicon. Whether I can afford them all is a different matter ;)
So, I've learned that twitter, while full of celebs, affiliate marketing spam and porn spam, also has its fair share of really nice, helpful people.
Sent from my G1
I visited Forbidden Planet in Glasgow today to update my reading pile. It started off a normal visit. I headed straight to the new release section and started looked for items in my "to get" list. I suddenly noticed that piled next to the standard issues, variant cover issues had been bagged, boarded and a £5 sticker slapped on them.
Pretty shocking! Can they do that? Come on, if I want to overpay for a variant cover I'll go on eBay. I don't expect that from a large chain retailer though.
Well, I got the last laugh (I think, even though I spent more than I should have). They hadn't repriced all the variants and I managed to sneak a couple at normal price (pictured).
Grumble over. Happy now.
Sent from my G1
It's been just over 2 weeks now since I sent of my Philips senseo coffee maker to get repaired after the recall announcement. Didn't bother me too much. They paid for packaging and collection via DHL. Told me they'd replace the part that seems to be exploding in the minority of other units and send it back.
I arrived home tonight to find they'd sent me a shiny brand new senseo! Obviously planned as the "we're happy to send you a new one" letter was written in 6 languages, but that's beside the point. Well done Philips. For the effort of sending away the unit for recall you've rewarded me with a new machine and a 2 year warrenty.
Coffee anyone?
Sent from my G1