Video: Boeing 777 Wing Ultimate Load Test

Realistic Physic based desktop manager

Orange County Choppers at HP

It looks like the guys on American Chopper are goingto be making a bike for HP. This video was taken around January 15th while the the Teutals were at HP checking out the factory. They also broke some stuff while there were there.

The Office: Playing Call of Duty

Rapom V8: Road legal drag-machine equipped with a 1.200Hp 8.2 V8 Mopar engine

And to think that there’re some people out there who believe that the Dodge Viper is absurd… Ha! Tipping the scale at 454 kg or 1.000 lb, the Rapom is equipped with a 8,2-litre supercharged Mopar V8 engine (tuned by ICE Racing) that runs on alcohol producing 1000 - 1200hp (depending on blower speed and fuel used). Although technically the Rapom is Road-legal (or… Road-lethal if you prefer), it is only used on the roads for a 10 mile journey back and forth to a local drag racing strip by its creator and owner, Nick Argyle. The builder tells us that the bike was spawned “from the unusual marriage of convenience and naivety”. See, after selling the chassis of his monster truck, Nick Argyle was searching for a much smaller project. He said: “I didn’t have the same workshop space I had when I built the truck. I only had the house garage so it had to be a bike. I was going to buy a new engine for the project but my wife told me to use the one that was still in a garage – a monster truck engine! Despite its size, I thought why not?’ I guess his neighbours must feel relieved that he didn’t have any Jumbo jets lying around his backyard…

Video: Audi’s New R8 In Las Vegas

Article here

Vista serial number

YFKBB-PQJJV-69188-VWGXY-2V3X8
This guy has got some balls. Funny, but its an RTM that's 2 months old and needs to be activated every 30 days or will timebomb at the end of May 2007.

Quote on how Microsoft blocks activation numbers:
"I've been working for MS for a while now (through an outsourced company) and I can tell you that any key is blockable -it's super easy to send an email (containing a product key) to 'actual' MS employees who will then ban the emailed key -this happens many times a day -usually due to stolen credit cards used to purchase Additional Licences of XP. And while I have yet to email a key for Vista -I'm sure that the process is just as easy. The 'tell' that a key is blocked is if an activation agent asks you to click the 'Change Product Key' button on the Activation Dialogue: you type in the key and it keeps comming back is invalid: *Inference*: the key has been 'blocked'. BTW -I have absolutely ZERO interrest in preventing piracy of MS products -the only time I send out the dreaded 'ban this key email' is when someone is doing 2 things: 1) obviously pirating, and MUCH more important, 2) being abusive when they deal MS staff who are just doing their job.
As an aside: when you are activating windows by telephone and the Activation agent asks you for your product key: start the countdown if you are using a pirated key -our asking you for the key means that we will be submitting your key for review, ie: MS will be actively watching for usage of that key -and if they determine that it's being used too much they will ban it -and I suspect (just conjecture here) that future MS anti-piracy innitiatives will disable or cripple versions of Windows using the suspect key.
I feel like I have to say, again, that I have NO interrest in the protection of MS (or any other proprietary software) I'm just trying to explain how it works at MS.
I ALSO feel I should point out that VISTA cracks are a little early -most PCs will not be able to properly run Vista. My personal feeling is that only PCs running a relatively (I almost didn't say relatively, btw) modern dedicated GFX card; a processor running 3 GHz or faster (there might be some movement on this point); and 2, count 'em, TWO Gigs of RAM. -If your PC doesn't measure-up then you are going to find Vista sluggish -at least.
Interrestingly enough Office 2007 seems to work very well on ANY semi-modern PC -And the jump from Office 2003 and Office 2007 is BY FAR (let me say that again: BY FAR) a bigger leap than the jump between XP and Vista.
I, btw, have decided to not install Vista -not just because of the system reqs. -maybe it's the same thing as those users of 2000 felt about XP -but Vista's DRM makes me more than a little uncomfortable.
For the time-being: I dual boot Ubuntu and XP.
(sorry for the long post: I just wanted to share a few thoughts)
(ps-To any MS staffers who frown upon employees expressing opinion: the moniker 'fiver22' represents, not a single person, but about 10 trillion employees -no, really...please believe me. Just because you catch me signing into Digg from work doesn't mean I'm actually THAT 'fiver22', ok?)"

Carroll Shelby's personal Cobra brings $5 MIL

1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Supersnake -- Lot #1301 Sold at $5,000,000
From Autoblog:

The only surviving dual supercharged factory Cobra, this Supersnake was Carroll Shelby's personal car. "When I built this dual supercharged 427 Cobra in 1966, I wanted it to be the fastest, meanest car on the road," said Shelby. "Forty years later, it will still kick the tail of just about anything in the world." Unfortunately, after selling for a gavel price of $5 MIL, it's unlikely this car will see any more roads, let alone kicking tail.

CSX3015 started out as one of the 19 production Competition Cobras and was then cranked up a notch to produce 800 supercharged horsepower. The twin Paxton supercharged 427 was mated to a three-speed automatic transmission. One other Supersnake was built for comedian Bill Cosby, but was wrecked, making this one the only factory survivor. The huge rush of having this extraordinary vehicle bring such a well-deserved insane top bid could be felt for miles around Westworld. We didn't get a chance to ask Shelby about the car during lunch, but we can guess that he was pretty happy with the result.