Presenting the Strandbeest, a creature that still remains unclassified within the boundaries of the kingdom animalia. Similar to the Canis lupus familiaris, or the dometic dog, the Strandbeest has developed into several varied breeds. This is due to the fact that the creature is capable of rapid evolution: the size disparity between the breeds can range to several feet, and some breeds have evolved to have wings. Another interesting fact is that this curious beast does not require the customary sustenance of food and water to survive. Instead, it only relies on the wind to sustain itself. For this reason, the Strandbeest's natural habitat can be found along the coastlines, more specifically the local beaches of the Netherlands, close to where their creator resides.

Creator?

Theo Jansen, a scientist turned artist, nay kinetic sculptor extraordinaire, has been tinkering in his lab, perfecting his self-sufficient artificial lifeform, the Strandbeest. He creates these wind-powered beasts with plastic yellow tubes, and then he unleashes them into the wild, I mean, the sandy beaches of Norway terrorizing picnicking families in its wake.


Hit the jump to see the Strandbeest in motion>>

Sure, you laugh, but who better to get you off this waste of a rock than Virgle--a new joint venture between giants Google and Virgin that aims to colonize Mars within the next 20 years.

Earth has issues, and it's time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

What's better? You (yes YOU) can be one of the first colonists of this brave new world. More info, after the jump.


[Google And Virgin Team For Human Settlement On Mars via TechCrunch]

As you already know, I'm a HUGE Wii fanboy. The intuitive (and not at all awkward) remote, the well thought out OS, the easy and functional friend code system--I just can't get enough of the Wii!!!!!!!1 Sadly, though, I'm alone in this as every damn message board I go to has nothing but a bunch of haters talkin' 'bout how awesome the 3-shitty is and how it's nothing but shovel-ware games that only further the concept of the Wii being a gimmic/"Tickle Me Elmo" instead of a game system. Pssh...they're SO made of fail.


Luckily ThinkGeek is made of win and ice cream...because they're (FINALLY) selling one of the most innovative games out of Japan: Super Pii Pii Brothers!


Check it, before you wreck it!

The play mechanics are simple. Prepare yourself by strapping on the included belt harness and jacking in your Wiimote. A series of toilets are presented on screen and the challenge is to tilt your body to control a never-ending stream of pee. Get as much pee in the toilets as you can while spilling as little on the floor as possible. Sounds easy eh? Well the toilets open and close whack-a-mole style and occasionally the stray cat or other cute critter pops up. Spray a cat for extra points. Get too much pee on the ground and your game is over. With realistic fluid dynamics for the pee and over 100 different bathrooms from bars and palaces to automatic Japanese style toilets you'll be entertained for hours. And wait until your friends see the multi-player mode with dueling pee streams...


Dude. I'm SO there.

[Video after the jump]

Yes, I mean it quite literally. Elemental music. Music from fire, ice and lightning (kraaaakooom!).


I came upon a post on Kotaku a couple months back about Tesla Coils playing the Super Mario theme. It was cool. It was awesome. It oozed with so much geeky goodness that you can't help but rip your clothes off and slather it all over your body. After reading the post, I just filed it in the back of my head like any other news tidbit of the day.


As the weeks went on, we came upon the Fire Organ mobile art exhibit from Burning Man. The fire organ is actually hooked up on an art car rightfully named Satan's Calliope. The way I understand it, each pipe shoots off a jet of fire to play a note.


And finally, we have Ice Percussion Music. A jazz percussionist by the name of Terje Isungset likes to experiment with non-traditional instruments, with ice being one of them. In fact, he teamed up with a few musician and an ice sculptor to create a set of ice instruments for their performance in the Ice Festival in Norway.


Do you see where I'm going with this? I doubt the three instruments can ever be played in the same area... that would a disaster. The Tesla Coils would be deafening, and the Fire Organ would melt the ice instruments... but it would be awesome if someone tried to make a mix of the three.


Hit jump to see some sample video >>

Been lurking over at Goteking again, and I found this gem:



It was dubbed the "First Full Scale Transformers." It is essentially a Mazda RX-7 'modded' with a couple of cardboard pieces to create the Transformers robot, Binal Tech "Meister" [バイナルテックシリーズ]. Freakin genius!


The "DIY" at the jump>>

What does this have to do with Nerdom? To that, my brother responded with a resounding "EVERYTHIIIIING!"


After all, it was he who showed the website to me in the first place. On why he was looking at a webpage about a 20 year old can of bacon is still a mystery to all of us. Perhaps it will ease the minds of all those marathon gamers out there that there is some sort of bacon product that can transcend time and space. More>>

Gizmodo featured the work of a cellphone modder from Goteking a few days back. The first featured mod is the Wiimote and a WILLCOM Advanced/W-Zero3 mod,rightly dubbed the WiiPhone:



More>>

Although most 16 year old geeks are too busy looking up mass amounts of porn and wishing they can get through the day without having to hand over their lunch money to the bully (with a heart of gold), one high school student has done a little bit more with his life...he created a wooden bicycle.

Created as a "personal project" for the International Baccalaureate program, Marco Facciola was inspired to create the metal-less vehicle because of his grandfather ("opa") who was forced to build wooden bike wheels in WWII due to the rubber scarcity in those days.


Marco has a nice write-up for Lee Valley, but credit goes to Gizmodo for bringing it to my attention.

tags: Wooden, Bike, Kid

So I was going through my feeds when I came across an "interesting" grill design that allows you to cook while you commute.





That's right kids, it's the EXHAUST GRILL. A concept grill that allows you to cook your burger via some tasty exhaust fumes. Here's the bonus:
This way you don't need fuel for cooking while commuting and a large amount of energy would be saved.

Thank Jeebus...I was starting to think this was a dumb idea.

I don't know if it's the strangeness of a human/electric powered car or the use of Bryce 3D in the video that draws me to the HumanCar® FM4, but I thought I'd share it with all of you just the same.

[Video after the jump]