No effing way.

I heard about it on the blagonet

I have confidence in the TSA

confidence that they can fuck up anything:

Why don't we get drunk and screw (with airline passengers) ?

(Why am I not surprised it was a Delta flight??)

On second thought let's x-ray everything!

Does this apply to you?

Don't lie to us - you know it does.

Internerd.

Clever Yuropeeans

Once again those clever Danes have taken the lead in traffic-calming technology. Curse you, American Educational System, for allowing us to fall so far behind.

On the other hand, there's no shame in stealing such a good idea, is there?

Have you ever watched, and I mean really watched some of the old Bettie Boop cartoons, with music by Cab Calloway?


During the opening of this first cartoon, made in 1932, "Minnie the Moocher", note that Cab Calloway performs a forward-moving variant of the "backsliding" or "moonwalk" dance move, the first time this move was performed on film.



Over on YouTube's site, one poster writes about this second cartoon, "Snow White", "We need more cartoons where things randomly transform into ducks and bottles of beer and get pulled inside-out." Right on, brother.

So now you've really watched some of the old Bettie Boop cartoons, but have you ever really watched some of the old Bettie Boop cartoons .... on weed?

When bollards attack.

SkyMaul - happy crap you can buy from a plane.

fs sa rlidwka
I'll chown your home and take your access away
Comin' straight outta Stanford, ain't nobody tougher,
Control-X, Control-C, I'll discard your fuckin' buffer.

# kill -9

Once upon a time, in a far-off land, two dolphins got sick when they ate some plastic. So they summoned the tallest man in the land, perhaps, some said, in the world. He put his extra-long arms down into the dolphins' tummies and pulled out the plastic that was making them sick, and they all lived happily ever. The end.

I only came in for a cup of coffee ...

Hoo boy. So my new job has exposed me to the field of NLP, or neuro-linguistic programming, and so I bought a book on it that looked interesting. I've really only started on it, so I havent really gotten to grips with it yet, but it's been an interesting ride so far - a curious mix of stuff I knew, and didn't know, and in some cases, don't believe. Still, I'll stick with it and give it a fair shake.

So in the context of NLP, one of my colleagues mentioned this movie, and as luck would have it, I had previously bought the DVD, on someone else's recommendation (possibly Netflix), but had not yet gotten around to watching it. So, I've watched about the first half, and my observations so far are

1) Marlee Matlin is a turbo hottie, but she'll never hear me say that.
2) Quantum physics is veeery strange, or if you prefer, the universe is a veeery strange place
3) NLP says "the way we think affects reality", quantum physics says "the way we think affects reality"

NLP practitioners like to say "the map is not the territory" (rather the same way René Magritte said ce-ci n'est-pas une pipe), and Wikipedia cross-references from there to discordianism which then leads inexorably to the Principia Discordia and then rapidly descends towards incoherency as it encompasses 'pataphysics, the Church of the SubGenius, a child named Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, general semantics and the structural differential.

As I say, I only came in for a cup of coffee.

Meet Tavin Dillard.

Tanks forfrom the memoryimagination.

Crush and grind

Ever wanted to just throw random shit in a blender, set it on puree and see what happens? You're not the only one. These guys want to make your twisted dreams a reality.

Sicko.

Truth is more wacked out than fiction

And from the I couldn't make this shit up if I tried department. Way to go Microsoft.

PS: Anyone have any good ideas for a web site to put up at monoposoft.com?

Um... did I break Reprobates

So I went to everyone's favorite blog and got an Internal Server Error. Google gets 500 errors? Who do we call on this? I want our monthly fees back. I demand this be fixed. Our readers depend on quality material to waste away their day and without Reprobates what do they have left? CNN? Foobies? Ze Frank? No. No, I don't our viewers can get the quality from those poser than they can from us.

I'm suing Google. Who is with me?

New School Old School

Are your grandparents unable to deal with technology yet they still want to feel hip and connected? Do they want the convenience of a cell phone but still can't work the TV remote? Have we got the product for them. Plus there's the added bonus of really confusing the young whippersnappers. "Wait, that's a whuht? How do you change the ringtone?"

HONK BAG!!!!

World of Whorecraft.

Presenting for your consideration: The Tragic Madness of Betty Butterfield. Found here. Not safe for work. Or home. Or, really, anywhere.

Kompressor is a strange dude. Aside from creating, uhh, interesting musics (his cover of Girl from Ipanema is the ne plus ultra of, umm, covers of Girl from Ipanema), he is also the creator of Toothpaste for Dinner (the web comic, not the gastronomic practice, AFAIK).

And, plus, well ... just look at him.

There's a guy who does nothing all day. Nothing, that is, except shoot video of hot girls he sees on the streets of NYC, edits the videos, sets them to music, and posts them on his web site.

Boo-ya!

The Loving Jesus

Unhurried business, laudable tolerant spirit
The time schedule, alarm clock, and reminding functions are your personal secretary, which help you handle the business activities calmly.

Everything is arranged orderly order and naturally reveals the laudable tolerant sprit.

Please make delight and happily browse our informing website with great joy and lightness in your heart.

Hovers by "e'?

Finally, the MSM gets it right with respect to the omnipotence of America's military - now the USA will really kick some butt!

Schneier weighs in

As usual, Bruce Schneier has a cleared headed anaylsis on recent terroist events and our leaders' responses.

Loss of short-term memory? Check. Confused thinking and odd thoughts? Check. Finding it easier to laugh at stuff? Check.

Symptoms of the disease, or side-effects of the prophylactic?

Monkeysphere

Besides the fact the domain name is great, and the writer is full of unabashed universal rage, this is hilarious take on current state of humanity.


Oh yeah, I forgot to add the obvious: monkeys are funny.

Thanks go to Chris for alerting me to this example of amazing stupidity coupled with the most amazing good fortune, not once, but twice. This discussion of a recent Mythbusters episode (#57) is also germane.

Does your ass have bad breath? You should try this.

Friday fun guessing games:

1) Funnel or Tunnel?
2) Man-milk or Moo-milk?
3) Orgasm or Excellent Marinara? (NB: not the same theme as game #2, despite what you're thinking)

Amazon milk. What, you were expecting maybe something else? Read the customer reviews.

Wanna read Reprobates at work, but don't wanna get caught?

How about this? Here, for example, is what the august organ of the Reprobates looks like via this new-fangled electric web transmogrifier.

Pictures of busted and/or otherwise unsafe shit, courtesy of the US Navy Safety Center.

LPR cameras, which are usually around the size of a can of tomato sauce, can be mounted on police cruisers and powered by cigarette lighters.

Hey Wired - proofread much (second-to-last paragraph)?

Slightly tongue-in-cheek sentence to set up conceit of joke. Punchline. Sentence to connect joke to substantive topic of posting - ending with obligatory link and capsule description ("A Daily Kos meta-posting").

Daily Mail you say? I got your Daily Mail right here, buddy.

                                  VINCENT
                       You'll dig it the most.  But you
                       know what the funniest thing about
                       Europe is?

                                  JULES
                       What?

                                  VINCENT
                       It's the little differences.  A
                       lotta the same shit we got here,
                       they got there, but there they're a
                       little different.

                                  JULES
                       Examples?

In the US, we call it this.
In the UK, it's called this.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breastcunt

Interactive-odular?.

I hope this doesn't have a bad effect on you.

Dubya sings "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Sort of. Well, more kinda raps. Whatever.

Like taking a kitty away from a kitty.

Thank you for choosing JANET Airlines for your travel needs today.

We know you have no choice, but thanks for choosing us anyway.

My current hotel room window offers me an excellent view of this place.

Have you ever felt so aggressive about putting your data on a USB drive that you were ready to tear someone's (or something's) head off and shove your data down its throat at 480mbit/sec?

Your wait is over.

A little late on the news, but still - Epitonic is publishing again. Yay!

Instant Riches

Start your fortune now by eBay'ing grilled cheese sandwiches with genuine Jesus face! All you need is the Jesuspan!

George Washington was evidently quite The Man.

Don't feed the birds

Really. They will fight back.

Pixies Covers

The Pixies as covered by the likes of Elvis and The Bee Gees.

Weird ass ice cream flavors

Speaking of whacky Japanese, how about some weird ass ice cream flavors? I can't decide between the squid gut and the charcoal.

Ah, those wacky Japanese. Anyone in the UK of a certain age will recall Clive James's TV show (entitled, cryptically, Clive James on Television) for introducing UK viewers to a Japanese game show by the name of Za Gaman ("The Endurance"), a game show so extreme it's in the Guinness Book of Records.

Fast forward to today - cruelty and suffering is still funny, and now the Japanese (and, of course, the rest of the world via the miracle of YouTube) can enjoy "Downtown No Gaki No Tsukai Ya Arahende!!" (something about "How Long Can You Stand It") - clips here, here, here and here.

When Spam Meets Engrish

You get this.

We've all seen really bad music videos. You know: those hair bands of the 80's all bobbin' and rockin' in unisin'; the wild camera gyrations that make it look like it was shot by a rabid squirrel; the spandex, fishnets and makeup - and that was on the guys.

You ain't seen nuthin' yet. Until you look over here.

What do US-based readers of Reprobates want? Who cares? I care, that's who. Just not very much.

So anyway - here's what you're gonna get - cogent political analysis of the Bush presidency ...


... and boobies ...

all in one place!

Behold, the awesome power of a fully operational mothershipReprobates blog.

Great list of lists on McSweeney's - like this one, this one, and, ooh, how about this one.

These guys are my heroes, even if they didn't come up with this.

Rotary neck cleaner. Whole tree shredding. Pork stomach splitter. Material handling. Leaf lard puller starter. Rotating shroud. Bung dropper. Automobile shredding. Lung gun. Stump grinding. Electric beef stimulator

Today, it's just a blog post. Twenty years ago these could have been the ingredients for a cutting-edge Butthole Surfers concert film.

A bunch of cunts.

SketchUp - cool as hell 3D solid-modelling program for Windows and Mac; company was bought by Google last year, looking forwards to seeing what that might entail for the future (such as lower personal license prices maybe?). In the meantime - get an 8-hour trial license and have some fun.

Old and busted - fake tilt-shift pictures, the new hotness - HDR. Also here.

You pull open a web page at random and begin reading

The team of physicists also analyzed time-reversal properties for short-lived evanescent waves that occur at forbidden frequencies in the phononic crystal. The evanescent waves exhibited surprisingly good time compression, showing that – despite the absence of hyperfocusing – time reversal focusing is still possible in highly ordered media.

Quick like a bunny now - pseudoscience, audiophile quackery, or real science?

You decide.

"Spoofing", "phishing", "hacking", "phisting" and "phucking" - all sorts of scary activities take place on teh Intarnets every day. How can you protect yourself? Why not starting by making sure you're connected to the "genuine" Internet by checking the Internet's hash value.

Just in time for Easter, Wizard-of-Oz-themed Dress-Up Jesus!

Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket, this is what the 1969 moon landing might have sounded like if not for those tight-assed prudes at the FCC.

Nice work if you can get it

Is this really what is on offer here?

"So basically I applied ..."

S-to-the-A-to-the-P is in da muthafukcin' hizzouse.

4.0E5

For the love of ALL that is HOLY, my ANUS is BLEEDING!

You thannk you stylin'

You got dubs on yo ride.

You got dubs on yo bike.

But you ain got shizzle less you got deez mad rimz

Fo sheezy

EAST SIYYYYDE!

WEST SIYYYYDE!

Uhm, MID SIYYYYDE!

Bugger! Fuck! Cunt! Shit! Arse! etc.

We all know these are "bad words" and that it's not "big" and it's not "clever" to swear, but the question is, exactly how bad are these words? Is "cunt" worse than "fuck"? Is "bastard" worse than "bollocks"? These are questions that vex many, and now it can be revealed at last, those shitfucking cuntwadshelpful people at the Advertising Standards Aauthority have the answer. Thing is, they've been sitting on this priceless knowledge for 6 years without telling us.

Bastards.

So did you hear the one about the Irish pilot?

Hitchin - my home town, as I mentioned before - in the news.

VW - unpimp your ride.

We all played with them growing up but it's time to come to realize that army men are so 20th century.

Behold their 21st century descendants. They're posable! They're flexible! They're cheap!

Devo's through being cool? Does that explain this, a definite harbinger of doom and signifier of the Apocalypse if ever there was one? Devolution of the human race is one thing, selling out and having your music re-recorded by kids and issued on Walt Disney Records is quite another.

Huh? These guys are buying these guys?

Next up: Your dog wants to buy these guys

Puppets haven't been this much fun since ... well, ever, really. Unless you count these guys.

This is why the intarweb was invented (by Al Gore)

The Driving Standards Agency (part of the Department of Transport) here in old blighty has decided it's time to update the Highway Code, a set of best practices for using the highways and byways of the UK. One of the recommendations it makes is that cyclists should use cycle paths wherever possible. What could be more sensible, given the fantastic facilities we have for cyclists here?

Having a row - good for you, or not?

Friggin' Laser Beams

"I have one simple request - sharks with friggin laser beams attached to their heads, and it can't be done." Or can it.

I'm not quite sure the purpose of this device other than to be cute.

And of course to have the phrase "PVC pecker" in print while still being SFW.

What's going on?

Baby got back - Vida Guerra

As “luck” would have it, I got the apartment, the money, and the girl. Not bad for a Wednesday. - The G Manifesto

Former US President and Nixon pardoner Gerald Ford was famously clumsy, but it is beginning to appear that Preznit Dubya is building himself an (un)enviably comparable track record for general klutziness.

No doubt a multi-billion dollar no-compete contract for the benefit of Halliburton to supply these and these is in the works.

Vader burns one

It's just your mind that makes it dirty ...

Old and busted: MC Hawking. The new hotness: Some dude (ab)using BT's SMS-text-to-Tom-Baker's-voice service to cover "Video Killed The Radio Star"

When using power tools it is essential to remember to wear safety goggles, hearing protection and gloves. As seen here

My Team

Not really sure why I haven't posted this before now, nor am I entirely certain why I am posting it right now. It may have something to do with this. Then again, it may not. Anyway, it's probably about time the whole Reprobates crew (you know who you are) knew about the My Team game.

I don't remember who I first learned the game from - probably Ian or Skippy - and I certainly don't remember who claimed to have invented it. So what I'm saying is - these may not be "the" definitive rules, but they're close enough for practical purposes.

Remember back in school, back in PE, when they would choose teams for some nominal game of dodgeball or crab football or whatever? The biggest/fastest/strongest/meanest kids would get picked first, then the middle of the pack, and then ... the dregs would be picked last. Basically, not so much picked, as resignedly "allowed" onto one team or the other. Not that yours truly has any memories of this sort, you understand ...

Anyway, now we're all (mostly) grown up, we can pick our own games, play by our own rules, and most importantly, pick our own teams. Which brings us nicely to - My Team.

You can play My Team with 2 or more players, and you can play any time you encounter someone other than your own little clique. The object of the game is simply to pick the "best" members for your team, and to be the first in your posse to do so, where "best" is basically defined as "most outstanding" as in "someone who stands out in a crowd". It's hard to define exactly what this means, but perhaps a few example characteristics will help get the ball rolling.

The best team members often have an off-kilter dress sense, and/or perhaps a haircut with unusual topography. Unlike in high school, team members can be very heavy, and while extreme bulk can certainly be sufficient cause to draft someone to your team, it is far from necessary. Indeed, some of the best picks I've made were of people who were total beanpoles. In fact, it may only require that someone make a really interesting facial expression, or sufficiently odd gesture, especially if the expression or gesture is out of place, unexpected, or inappropriate for the venue.

The only real rule is - you cannot draft an obviously handicapped (mentally or physically) person to your team. You want to at least be reasonably certain that a team member looks that way as the result of a (at least partially) conscious choice, and not because of an accident of birth.

So is this just a fashion police thing? Certainly not. Is it a "ha! ha! that person doesn't look just like everyone else!" Mmm, no. What it is is more of a slap in the face of the conventions of high-school style jocko-homo team picking.


So how do you play? Quite simply, you and your "krew" are out for a constitutional, when all of a sudden you come upon someone dressed in, let's say, a white headband, bright yellow tinted reflective sunglasses (indoors, at night), luminous yellow turtleneck, matching leggings, and a brown Ultrasuede jacket. Like, say, oh, I dunno, the person I drafted to My Team pictured here (Picture taken with world's crappiest cameraphone, under less-than-ideal conditions, standing in the checkout line at Giant, your mileage may vary). The first person to "call" or "draft" the individual for their team (which you do by announcing "my team!" to the rest of your homies, while subtly indicating the draftee) wins that round. Play continues ... forever. There is no overall winner, or exit strategy. "Winning" the overall game is the kind of thinking that high-school-sports-team-pickers engage in, and they, as we all know, are losers. Yes, you read it here. Winning is for losers.

So, actually, the other thing I'm illustrating here is that you can even play this game alone - all you need is a cameraphone, madd surreptitious camera-usage skills to "draft" the team member, and a place to post your results. Like, say, here. Let the games begin.

Interior design began with the first cave dwellers. Most likely it was a gay caveman who decided to paint pictures of running bison and other frolicking animals on the rough walls and low ceilings of his abode. Not only were these flourishes artistic and decorative, they also served as a way to feel more comfortable while living in a hole in the earth.

But, my how times have changed. Gone is the stereotypical association of gay men with good interior design. Despite the popularity of TV shows like Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, the Internet has shattered the gay style myth forever with its slew of nude amateur self-portraits that clog newsgroup bandwidth from New York to Sydney and back again. These Feng Shui-challenged souls have proven over and over again that male homosexuals can be just as color uncoordinated, sloppy and nastee as their straight bretheren -- and despite the crippling setback from the Discovery Channel's token screaming queen, home decor fluffer Christopher Lowell, the gap between what defines gay and straight is slowly beginning to zipper shut.

For us at Luriddigs.com the charm of amateur pics has never involved the vulnerability displayed by the model's self-willed nudity. As soon as a JPEG has fully loaded in our browser, we immediately begin to scour the image's background in search of clues and signs that are a thousand times more intriguing than bare butts or engorged genitalia. Interiors are like handwriting, and for those who know how to decipher the mishaps of furniture meeting form, many secrets are revealed. Join us inside, while our snooty panel plumbs the background life of the Net's most audacious and careless interior designers.


Horrifying gay amateur interiors (SFW? Mmm ... not so much)

In the beginning, readers of tedious British populist tabloids would write in with facile and trivial "reader's tips". Then, Viz got into the act with their "Top Tips". (Things took a weird but brief detour in 1996 when McDonald's briefly got involved, but no matter)

Then, the web made everything old new again, and a lot of terribly earnest young men and women started posting "life hacks". And then Jason Kottke posted a satirical "popcorn hack".

Soon, everyone was getting in on the act.

Wibble wibble, yip yip.

We've probably all seen something like this by now - you take an empty 2 litre plastic soda bottle and a bucket of water, you put a piece of perforated foil over the top, cut the botto... ah, no. Wait. Different technique for getting into space. You use a bicycle pump type thing, and make a rocket out of it.

Discovery Channel's best program, Mythbusters, recently made one, and found it to be more powerful than they had anticipated. No shit. Take a look at what they do with them in Japan.

I am so building one of these things.

Although the otherwise-excellent aircraft seat maps at seatguru.com don't show it accurately, the economy-class heads or toilets behind row 26 on United's 777-200 XC consist of a row of three regular aircraft bogs in front, and a second row that contains only two. Of these two, the aft port-side head is gigantic - at least by economy class aircraft standards - and thus eminently suitable for mile-high hijinks.

For those who aren't soon planning a flight on United to Europe however, Mile High Atlanta offers an alternative. Downside: it's a Piper Cherokee, not a plush 777. Upside: you get to use a real bed, not an aircraft bog. And, included in your $299 "ride" - you get to keep the sheets. At least you won't have to worry about those who have, uhh, come before you.

The city as an avatar of itself

It came to me as something of a surprise just how easy it is to mislead someone into thinking they're looking at a photo of a model when they're actually looking at a photo of the real thing.

If you want to spend a lot of money and do this the "right" way, you can buy a tilt/shift lens like this one. When you do so, you can get results like these by Olivo Barbieri (story, more), Marc Räder, Miklos Gaál, or Håmish Gránt.

However, it's a truth generally acknowledged today that any technique that requires pieces of aspherically curved glass can also be done with bits, quicker, safer, cheaper, more repeatably, with more chances to tweak the results, and so on.

So, if you want to make pictures like these but don't want to spend a ton of money doing it, you can actually fake it pretty easily.

How easily? Well, here's my first attempt (before, after) which was OK, but not as convincing as I'd hoped. So then I tried again with a photo from Singapore (before, after) which I tweaked more extensively. Compare, especially, the perspective change between the before and after.

Once I got the technique more or less down, the next two (Harper's Ferry, WV before and after, and Wellington before and after) took only a few minutes each.

If you want to know how I did this, leave a comment.

Funny eBay feedback.

Web 2.0 - or is that twenty? - where the pages turn themselves.

Meet Myranda Didovic. She's here to introduce you to today's vocabulary word (technically, acronym), which is EFRO.

Random violence can be strangely hypnotic. If you don't believe me, try watching it with the sound off.

Mousetrap!

Whoa. Cool as Kim Deal.

Old and busted: eXtreme Programming conference. The new hotness: Waterfall 2006

Ken is great. All hail Ken.






Olbermann, that is.

This story could only have been improved by a huge "10 TON" lead weight dropping on the unfortunate goober when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

Q) When is a near miss not a near miss? A) When the CAA says so, apparently.

Good taste. Good design. Good aesthetics. Un-American?

You're in a dark, twisted Internet where all pathways look alike. Looking around you discover a nostalgia stimulant.

Did you bring your grue repellent?

iTunes Signature Maker. Very cool. Here's mine.

Create a "W" Mashup

Create your own W. Speech Mashup.

I love watching Apple's rivals talk about the success of the iPod, and why their own devices and software have not enjoyed the same level of market penetration (heh-heh "penetration").

First up in the "not really getting it" stakes is Microsoft's Stevie B with this quote that reminds me of George H.W. Bush's "vision thing" gaffe:

We've got a lot of work to do. On the PC, our stuff is still the most popular stuff out there. It's not true in the portable device space, and I think we have to do some stuff to simplify the experience.

"Do some stuff to simplify the experience". Yeah, that. Maybe they could do some, like, interaction design or whatever. And calling theirs the most popular "stuff" on the PC is a bit like Ford saying "yeah, we have the most popular Taurus out there".

But then C|Net make a nice point about MS's branding around portable music players:

Virtually all devices that use Microsoft technology carry the company's "Plays For Sure" logo, intended to show compatibility among all the devices and online services that Microsoft's products mesh with. But there's been a catch: Not all the devices have actually been fully compatible with subscription services.

I like the "Plays For Sure" logo. It serves the purpose of introducing fear and doubt where it may not have previously been, the way a car that proudly bears a sticker saying "Guaranteed not to blow up and kill you in a horrible fiery death!" would.

But the very best part of all about the "Plays For Sure" logo is that there is a caveat to it - a disclaimer that says "May not actually be true. Not valid in AK and HI. Price and participation may vary. Caveat emptor" - aah, the big print giveth, and the small print taketh away, because in fact all the music for which you pay a monthly fee so you can continue to enjoy it, the big differentiator over Apple and their so-last-year "perpetual license" model, you can't actually listen to it on your not-an-iPod because it doesn't actually Play. For. Sure.

The winner, though, in the "denial is not just a river in Africa" sweepstakes comes from Mark Farish, senior product manager for Samsung Electronics America, who says:

Apple has buried the market with advertising for (iPod and iTunes), and since then it's been difficult for any other company to shake that bedrock

Riiight. It's Apple's superior advertising muscle - that's why they're so far ahead. It's not because the iPod doesn't need a poxy "Plays? Oh ya, ya sure, ya betcha!" sticker, or because they've already "done some stuff" to de-shittify the experience, it's because Apple has better advertising.

But ultimately this is all good news for Apple, because so long as these dilweeds continue to believe that all they need is better advertising and slogans to convince users that, really, bleeding from the eyes is a good thing, that wanting to smash that shiny plastic gewgaw you just bought to smithereens because it won't play the Smithereens is healthy, normal, and above all a fun experience, Apple ain't got nothin' to worry about.

World's greatest blonde joke

I've know blogged the MetalStorm before (I just can't find the post ... on this blog ... that's frickin' owned - not pwned - by Google ... go figure), but now I bring you ... the DREAD.

If this thing catches on and becomes the dominant projectile-firing weapon of choice for the military, what are kids going to say instead of "BANG!" when they shoot one another? And what are they going to use to simulate the weapon when it doesn't look like an outstretched index finger? Inquiring minds want to know.

... and here's another thing. "Recoilless"? So ... they've managed to overcome Newton's First Law? Intriguing. I'd hate to see what kind of gyroscopic effects you'd get from this. They're talking about speeds up to 8000fps, implying that the spinny disc thing inside is achieving 8000fps tangential velocity at the rim - let's say the thing is about two feet in diameter, or about 6 feet in circumference. It's doing over 1,300 rps? 80,000 rpm? Hmm. Also, if you watch the video, the grouping they're getting from the prototype doesn't look too hot.

Meh - move along, nothing to see here. Except that the music on the video is bitchin'.

Engines

Big (yes, those are stairs and walkways you can see on it) and bigger (alas, blogged here before, but I can't find it right now), small and smaller, and then you have ... this, umm, thing.