From a description of the top attractions to visit in Trondheim, Norway: “Designed to assist bike riders in their ascent of the steep hill, this mechanized conveyor belt (most of which is concealed underground beneath a metal-edged groove in the pavement) hauls bicycles, with their riders, up a steeply inclined stretch of a scenic bike path. The cost for 15 minutes of continuous operation is 100NOK ($15), which you can pay by inserting coins into the machine’s coin slot. Frankly, most individual riders either walk their bikes or cycle in low gear up the relatively short hill, but as a conversation piece, the Sykkelheis is worth a look.” Click the more link to see more pictures.
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I love going to the movies, but I’ve been settling for watching them mostly on the small screen since my son was born 2 and a half years ago. So, when my wife and son were away for the weekend, I headed to the local megaplex for a full day at the movies. And I mean it when I say it was a full day. I watched 4 full movies back to back which is a new personal record.
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Some things are more fun when they are presented in a different way. Take the montage of Simpsons couch gags, for example. It’s most (though not all) of the couch sequences from The Simpsons sped up to fit into a five minute video. From swapping heads, to vending machines, to space aliens, to medieval times, all of your favorites are represented. See the full video here.

Accessibility has always been taken into consideration in computer design. There are screen readers, magnifiers, alternative point and click devices, and more. I imagine that it’s still difficult for a blind person to comfortably use a computer, and Jonathan Lucas is trying to make a difference with the Siafu display. “It lays flat like a tablet and allows the user to fully interact with it by way of touch. The surface utilizes a conceptual material called magneclay or magnetized liquid. This material has the ability to morph upward into any shape via a controlled electromagnetic field enabling the device to create a braille surface for reading and even pictures in 3D relief.”

How many times have you gotten close to the end of a jar of peanut butter and you end up spending an extra 30 seconds scraping the bottom of the jar to get the last bit of peanutty goodness? I know, it hasn’t really happened to me very often either, but one enterprising inventor thinks that this is a problem that needs to be solved, so he’s come up with a better jar. It has no shoulders to get in the way of your knife scraping, and there is a cap on both ends, so if you can’t get at the stuff from one side, you can close it up, flip it over, and try again. The idea is good, I think, but it just seems like overkill to solve what amounts to a fairly minor problem. Plus, if the cost of my Jif is going to go up so that they can afford to put it in fancier jars, I’d rather save the money and continue to do a little more scraping.

Esquire magazine has an article listing 75 things every man should know how to do. There are some that you’ll likely disagree with, but many of them are interesting and fun. Here are some of my favorites. Click through to see the full list and read the Esquire explanations.

It’s a little scary to think about criminals latching onto this idea. Wired magazine has a story about the project and a short description about how it works. The device “is simple, consisting of a circle of infra-red LEDs mounted on a headband. The infra red is invisible to The Man, but will cause CCTV cameras to flare out over the face of the wearer, obscuring his identity and making this the digital equivalent of a hooded sweatshirt.”