Top Down - Miata MX-5 Blog

Friday, April 11, 2008

Back on the air, on a limited way, on Twitter

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Top Down is going on hiatus and/or will have very sporadic updates. Our twins were born today!

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How Google ranks a web page, with the information coming from their patent application. Great news for people trying to increase the popularilty of their web sites.

Neat collection of casino floor carpeting.

The Japanese battle for the world's thinnest pen tip.

Steve Jobs very personal commencement speech given to Stanford University grads.

Very funny Paris Hilton commercial paraody.

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Mazda's www.bethecar.com site is getting updated tonight. Another NC Miata web site. And a New Zealand web site that lets you choose an NC color.

Get your own squirrel liquor decanter.

The science of golf balls.

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One enthusiast's idea of a green NC Miata.

Bye bye VHS. Walmart is joining other large stores in dropping prerecorded VHS tapes from its stores, making room for DVD, starting at the end of 2006.

Make your Hummer owning neighbor cry like a little girl and own your very own 727 limousine.

The Repliee Q1 Android robot - one more step to our future robotic overlord. Doesn't put up a fight yet against a pushy Japanese man (video).

Cool autocross video.

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For next Easter, why not surprise the kids by planting Egg Babies.

The top 10 ways to steal a car, and the methods to prevent them.

It was only a matter of time when somebody made a music video out of crash tests done by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

One way Star Wars nerds end their marriage.

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This is not the Flyin' Miata entry to Car and Driver's Superfour Challenge.

Another reason cats are evil...two kittens pee on a fax machine, causing a fire that extensively damaged their owner's home. On another note, cat owner's get the last laught by putting stuff on cats.

Build your own Ultimate Water Gun.

Especially for off-road posers: spray-on-mud.

30 things you didn't know you could do on the Internet.

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Flyin Miata's entry into Car and Driver's Superfour car tuner challenge.

If you were Donald Trump's wife, you'd be getting a Mercedes Benz SLR McLaren as a gift, with a nice red bow tie on top.

Darth Vader on the Wheel of Fortune.

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Talk about a flyin' miata...a Miata crashes into a Titan 1 rocket.

A race car loses a wheel and ...

The Operating System Sucks-Rules-o-Meter.

Black holes in Goole Maps.

The Coast Guard intercepted 13 cubans trying to get to the US in a floating taxicab..

It's raining men in New York...body pieces from an airline stowaway landed on a woman's roof.

A horrifying eyewitness account of the unbeliebably freakish and tragic Shelly Howard drag racing accident.

Mexican bullfighting dwarves are words you never thought would be put together, but it flows pretty well.

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Reading glasses or bifocals may become a thing of the past as doctors develop a new, surgically imlpanted lens that can allow patients to see near distance objects.

Yowza...an LS2 V8 engine, used in the Corvette transplanted into a Solstice.

Bait car videos.

What does a turkey or a police car sound like around the world from a child's point of view? Audio clips of onomatopoeia from around the world.

Oomph...A National Geographic conical probe with 7 video cameras gives a view of what it's like to get run over by a tornado.

How to flink an aluminum plate from 0 to 76,000 mph in under a second.

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Apple preparing to switch to Intel processors? ...Update: yes, it's true. And here's a developer's note from Apple outlining the guidelines for Universal Binary Programming on these new machines.

Interesting things that the Florida Power & Light dig up on the job.

With the year only half over, PC World lists the 100 best products of 2005.

RatDVD - another thing to worry about in the eyes of movie studios.

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Tom and Ray of NPR's Car Talk radio show think that the Miata is scary on the highway.

Celebrate National Doughnut Day with a free one from Krispy Kreme.

Dress up Steve Jobs.

The $4.15 million nickel.

Download every single note that Beethoven composed, courtesy of the BBC Philharmonic.

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A bit icy in hell today...Microsoft's next version of Office will save documents in a non-proprietary XML format.

When embroidery and unabashed Star Wars geekiness collide.

Refrigerator magnet free for all.

Simulating the universe..."It is probably the biggest thing ever in computational physics. For the first time we have a replica universe which looks just like the real one."

Neat...the VW "multivan", a van with a cool paint job.

A wooden Ferrari F50 boat.

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Some engine noise videos of the NC Miata.

A very nice picture of the under side of an NA Miata.

Nice...a fairly comprehensive guide to the concepts involved in writing a web page by hand.

Some video staffers at WTNH TV poking fun at their own weather doppler system.

What to do with two large boxes of unused 8cm PC case fan.

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Protect your precious Ben and Jerry's ice cream with this Pint Lock.

Toyota to sell robot help by 2010.

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Scary puppets synging hymns of love for children: The Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson Show. Starring frightneting alien puppets, and Chip, the Black Boy.

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Just in time for Memorial Day...secrets to grilling a good hamburger.

School children write funny puns for Darth Tater. "Luke, I am your farmer."

How to own a Ferrari, the inexpensive way

Congratulations Rhode Island - your drivers are the dumbest in the nation. A shout out to Oregon, the state with the smartest drivers.

Neat story of the creation of the original THX "deep note" sound.

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Honda's engines and transmissions ranked first among those of six automakers included in an internal GM analysis of the latest J.D. Power and Associates Initial Quality Study data.

Now's your chance to own a Chevy Blazer Mercedes Benz 4 wheel drive vehicle.

Flyin' Miata shows what a twin-screw supercharger would look like if you had x-ray vision.

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Das Keyboard - a keyboard with no inscriptions on the keys - for uber Geeks. Makes you type faster because your brain can no longer look at the keys when typing.

A helpful diagram on how to turn your hamster into a fighting machime.

Inside the Xbox 360: Procedural synthesis and dynamic worlds.

This Bud and this email is for you. Budweiser offers free email service.

Bad news: driving drunk. Worse news: driving drunk, and your drunk friend who was sticking his head out the window, gets decapitated. Even worse news: driving 10 miles back home, not aware your drunk friend has no head.

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Someone stumbld on a commercial or movie shoot involving 4 NC Miatas in downtown Vancouver, BC: pictures here, here, here, and here.

Neat...a human powered hydrofoil or a vehicle out of the latest Star Wars movie.

How to complain effectively.

When you're playing make beleive Jedis, fluorescent tubes filled with fuel does not make a good lightsaber.

Be afraid...a cybernetic parrot sausage. If you're handy you can make your own.

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Yum...Porsche revealed the first official images of their new sports car - the Cayman S, a coupe based on the Boxster series.

Bummer...a Volkswagen GTI catches on fire - a video taken by the passenger catches the whole thing.

The Japanese word for GM? Maybe "Mitsubishi" - Mitsubishi losses widened to $4.4 billion and sales tumbled 16 percent for the latest fiscal year.

Sightings of flying pigs? Apple Computer Inc. has been in talks that could lead to a decision soon to use Intel Corp. chips in its Macintosh computer line, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The report, citing two industry executives with knowledge of recent discussions between the companies, said Apple will agree to use Intel chips. Or is this another attempt to influence IBM who makes the current Macintosh processors?

Neat...GPS Visualizer is a free on-line utility that creates JPEG maps and profiles from GPS waypoints and track logs.

Why surfing on your pickup truck down a residential street is not a good idea.

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Shucks, looks like space billboards will not be in our future.

Another Iraqi prison abuse victim: Saddam shown in his underwear. The horror.

Microsoft has updated it's PowerToys for Windows XP.

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Neat...a repository of free PDF e-books.

To mark the premiere of Star Wars III today, a hilarious Star Wars photo shop contest. Or, how about the Star Wars Last Supper scene.

Chrysler is abandoning it's 7 year, 70,000 mile power train warranty, and reverting back to a 3 year, 36,000 mile warranty.

Neat...Californians now have our own 24 hour earthquake forecast map.

Very cool...a cheap gas finder via a Google Maps interface.

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Rods from God: hurling cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon. The Air Force seeks Bush's approval to weaponize space. Star Wars - here we come.

How to create a fake fingerprint.

"It swelled up...it ain't nothing you can do." an appropriate ending to a dry ice bomb video.

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Mazda began official production today of the NC Miata at their Ujima No. plant, in Hiroshima, Japan.

Video of storm chasers getting hit with softball sized hail.

Good golly miss molly...the Playstation 3 was introduced at the E3 conference yesterday afternoon. Coverage and videos at Gamespot.

Star Wars III Revenge of the Sith coming this week...read the script before watching the movie, and get all the trivia and background info you can shake a light saber at.

Darth Vader...meet Darth Vader Dog.

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A California company has developed super-oxygenated water that wipes out single-celled organisms, and which appears to speed healing of burns, wounds and diabetic ulcers. The solution looks, smells and tastes like water, but carries an ion imbalance that makes short work of bacteria, viruses and even hard-to-kill spores.

Toyota Prius blue screen of death? A software problem is causing some Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid cars to stall or shut down while driving at highway speeds, according to a published report.

This is not your father's bcycle: Cadillac Bicycles.

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Lesson #1: Don't put your iPod in a washing machine. Lesson #2: Don't repair iPod after it's been in the washing machine. Rip. Mix Burn Boom.

Cross that off the biology class agenda next year: a dissection of a live dog in a Utah biology class has outraged students and parents.

Is your child lonely? Don't fret...rent some friends! Get some girls from RentMyDaughter.com or boys from RentMySon.com.

Neat...the UltraTech PC Knowledge database.

Yowza...little girl frozen in time. Brooke Greenberg, a 12 year old Baltimore girl who looks and acts like an average 6 month old baby, weighs 3 pounds and is 27 inches long. Her syndrome remains undiagnosed and unnamed, and as far as doctors can tell, she is the only one in the world who has it.

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A European brochure for the NC Miata is now available.

Neat...NASA is developing a subvocal speech system that could enable you to make a phone call while keeping your lips sealed.

Jesus Dress Up.

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