Fog, Highway 71 Overpass at Lamar Blvd. Austin, TX 12.18.2008

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Have you ever jailbroken an iPhone? Ever used a software solution to “unlock” the iPhone’s SIM slot, freeing it from the shackles of its original carrier? Chances are, the iPhone Dev Team had something to do with it. This group, made up of some …

On New Year’s Eve, as a finale to the Austin, TX First Night parade,
artists Dave Umlas and Marrilee Ratcliffe are going to set a 34 foot tall, dual faced, functioning wooden clock ablaze.

"So often, "art" is the tangible thing produce…

This is totally for BB, the David Lee Roth Runnin’ With the Devil soundboard.

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Time-Wasters, Web

If you’re a NewGrounds user, you’ve no doubt seen the Pico franchise before – it’s been around for ages. Some of the games in the series might be just a tad politically incorrect, but don’t let your sensitive side stop you from trying out P.I.C.O.

P.I.C.O. was created by Bomtoons for Pico Day 2006, and it’s still a great way to kill some free time. Choose your team of three characters from the series and dust off your trajectory-based combat skills. Aim your selected weapon (grenade, rocket launcher, fist, etc.) carefully with the arrow keys, press and hold the space bar to power up and release it to unleash your attack.

Want to test your skills against a friend or co-worker? Take them on in a two-player match and prove your superiority! It’s a great way to make your whole team blow that important deadline.

P.I.C.O. is a stylish, fun take on the Worms series, and I shudder to think how much time I’ve blown over the years playing them.

What am I doing blogging? I’ve got three grenades left!

P.I.C.O. is 3-on-3 Worms style warfare in your browser – Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charlie Rose interviewed Malcolm Gladwell recently. They had the following discussion on meaningful work (at 26:00 into interview).

Gladwell: Meaningful work is one of the most important things we can impart to children. Meaningful work is work that is autonomous. Work that is complex, that occupies your mind. And work where there is a relationship between effort and reward — for everything you put in, you get something out…

If you are convinced that the work you are doing is meaningful, then curiosity, there’s no cost to it. If you think there’s always got to be a connection between what you put in and what you get out, then of course you’ll run off with a great excitement after an idea that catches your idea.

Rose: People often ask me to define leadership and I say to them what you just said all the time. You have to communicate what the mission is all the time — and how meaningful someone’s contribution is to the mission.

When you believe that the work you’re doing has meaning, it’s an extra shot of adrenaline. Good food for thought for anyone trying to create a workplace culture that engages employees.

In the interview, Gladwell also mentioned he meets with Nathan Myhrvold once a month to discuss ideas. Myhrvold sounds like quite a character: formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, began college at age 14, worked under Stephen Hawking studying cosmology, is a prize-winning nature and wildlife photographer whose work has appeared in scientific journals like Science and Nature, is a master French chef who works at one of Seattle’s leading French restaurants, and he won the world championship of barbecue. Talk about a renaissance man!

If you’re Steve Jobs, you probably dream of stories like this: Zunes all over the world froze up at around 2am this morning and won’t reboot, and nobody knows why.

ArsTechnica says it seems to have affected all owners of the 30 gig model, and hit no matter what you were doing at the moment:

“i was on the computer my zune was hooked up charging all of the sudden it reset it self and froze on the zune loading logo screen !!!” said ISUZU RODEO on the Zune.net forums. “Same thing just happened to me!” replied momogirl. “Except mine wasn’t hooked up to the computer, I was playing music and all of sudden the music stopped and it shut off. I turned the Zune back on and it loaded to 100% but then froze and none of the reset combinations are working.”

Microsoft has been embarrassingly slow to respond to the story, but according to MSNBC they’ve now released the following statement:

“Customers with 30gb Zune devices may experience issues when booting their Zune hardware. We’re aware of the problem and are working to correct it. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience!”

We assume by “your patience” they mean “your many, many class action lawsuits.”

We were going to make some pointless Skynet jokes, but the funny has already been exhaustively covered on Gizmodo’s board as well as Zune’s own forums (which are now offline for "maintenance"—maybe they were hosted on a Zune). We have a feeling that Shatner Zune pic, courtesy of Gizmodo reader Bill Bradski, is going to stick around for a while, though.

(Photo: Bill Bradski or Brasky, Gizmodo isn’t sure) [Update: I didn't get that "Brasky" was an SNL reference, my apologies. - CW]

If you missed my posts on Monday, it’s because I was up at 3am blowing chunks into the porcelain throne the night before. It takes a lot for me to not blog, even when I’m sick, so you know I was hit with something awful. And no, I wasn’t hungover.

Instead, as I later found out, I fell victim to this year’s stomach bug. I picked it up at a holiday party here in Ohio, where I am doing the annual visit the in-laws thing. After garnering enough energy by Monday afternoon to Tweet about my ordeal, I learned from the @ replies, that I was not alone.

The stomach bug was not only afflicting others in Ohio, but a search on Google News revealed that it had earlier been spreading in the western part of my home state of North Carolina and throughout the U.S.

I also learned that the British were more likely to call it “norovirus” and that it was spreading like wildfire throughout the UK. (It is also called the “Norwalk virus” which is only completely ironic since I’m in Norwalk, Ohio.)

The stomach bug is not generally deadly, though it gives symptoms that send many to the emergency room. But it’s lack of lethal-ness is perhaps the reason why Google has not been officially tracking it like it did the flu.

But oh – what a public service if it did! So, I went to Google Trends to see for myself how “stomach bug” and “norovirus” were, um, trending:

As you can see, the ailment is actually trending lower this year than in previous years, but it is on the rise.

Here are some tips to keep this trending lower:

Prevention Tips from the CDC:

• Frequently wash your hands, especially after toilet visits and changing diapers and before eating or preparing food.
• Carefully wash fruits and vegetables, and steam oysters before eating them.
• Thoroughly clean and disinfect contaminated surfaces immediately after an episode of illness by using a bleach-based household cleaner.
• Immediately remove and wash clothing or linens that may be contaminated with virus after an episode of illness (use hot water and soap).
• Flush or discard any vomitus and/or stool in the toilet and make sure that the surrounding area is kept clean.

Treatment Tips from the CDC

• Get hydrated The vomitting and diarrhea dehydrate you. Drink water, oral rehydration fluids (ORF), or juice. Sports drinks will not work in this case.
• Stay away from people You’re contagious from the moment you get the bug until 3 days after.
• If symptoms persist, see a doctor The stomach bug should go away in 24-48 hours. If it doesn’t, get medical attention.

I have played this video again and again, trying to figure out what’s going on here. I can’t. My brain is fried. Yoshimoto Cube has fried my brain and it’s not even 2009 yet.

According to the description, the Yoshimoto Cube transforms into two stellated rhombic dodecahedrons. Which is a fancy way to say “the Yoshimoto Cube transforms your brain into pineapple jelly”. [Reddit]