There are many fan films on the Internet, made by many talented teams of fans, but this film made by a group of Lord Of The Rings fans is undoubtedly one of the best I have ever seen.
If you are even a mild LOTR fan, you should take a look at the Hunt For Gollum.
Here is the link - http://www.thehuntforgollum.com/
Below is a very short video that will take you through a tour of the world's largest model railway. This project, which has taken over 500,000 hours to construct, is very impressive. After you watch the video, you'll understand why this qualifies for space on the "That's Cool" blog.
I haven't posted on this blog for a long time. (All of my blog-energy has been going into my leadership-blog - stop by http://leadershipdiamond.blogspot.com/ and take a look.)
However, that doesn't mean that there aren't some really cool things going on in the world. Here is one that just begged to be posted on this blog:
Discovery Channel News has posted an article about a new technology that will send thoughts from one brain to another - no need to speak, send an email - just think.
The article, which can be found on the Discovery Channel web site, says:
Known as synthetic telepathy, the technology is based on reading electrical activity in the brain using an electroencephalograph, or EEG.Naturally the technology is being developed by the military, but Discovery Channel reports that a similar technology is being explored by game-developers for controlling video games.
Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels.
Gapminder work serves a purpose of filling a gap. There has been a market failure in distributing global data. A lot of people are interested in the data, but don’t get access to it (and if they manage to access the data, they need to be advanced skilled statisticians to analyze it). Gapminder wants to make data more accessible and easier to use for instant visual analysis. We believe decision makers, politicians as well as education at almost all levels lack adequate tools.
There is no political agenda behind the work. The idea is that all people, independently of their political agenda, should get free access to already existing statistics about global development to easily improve their understanding about the complex society.
Many of you have probably already found this search engine, and may already be using it. If not, you too can help save the earth by using Blackle, the "black Google" search engine. (http://www.blackle.com/
According to the Blackle information page:
Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.
Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "(The) image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002.
According to information buried in Blackle's web links, it takes about 74 watts to display a white page, while a black page takes about 59 watts. This savings adds up when you consider the millions of people viewing the white Google search engine page every day.
According to Blackle as of the date and time of this posting, about 536 megawatt hours had been saved by using the Blackle black-background search page. Click here to read more about the energy savings computations, and assumptions.
So, give it a try. You get the quality of a Google search at 79.7% of the energy consumption.
Here is a very short sample of some of the fun things that are happening with the future of automobile transportation. I have no idea if any of these brainstorms will prove to be the "Next Big Thing", but if the auto manufacturers in Detroit and the other major transportation capitols of the world will stay out of the way, there could be some very interesting vehicles i
n our future.
The first is one that I have reported on before. Tesla Motors, a company that is in the very early stages of producing an all-electric car put this announcement on their web site in March 2008:
Tesla Motors Begins Regular Production of 2008 Tesla Roadster
San Carlos, Calif. – (March 17, 2008) -- Regular production of the 2008 Tesla Roadster commenced today, marking an historical milestone for Tesla Motors and a watershed in the development of clean, zero-emissions vehicles.
First unveiled as a prototype on July 19th, 2006, the revolutionary Tesla Roadster generated an extraordinary response from people everywhere who were inspired by the vision that beautiful, high performance cars could generate zero-emissions and burn no oil.
Yes, this all-electric offering is reported to go from 0-60 in 3.9 seconds, get the equivalent of 135 miles per gallon of gasoline, go 220 miles on a single charge, recharge in 3-6 hours, and cost a minuscule 2 cents per mile to run. The only catch is that the base price is over $98,000, and easily goes up from there.
designed by Aptera Motors, Carlsbad, California. According to its press, this vehicle goes from 0-60 in under 10 seconds, gets about 120 miles per charge, each charge costs somewhere between $1 and $2, and charging takes between 2 and 4 hours. Aptera is not publishing detailed specs right now because the car is still in the development stage.
forward to importing this diminutive commuter car to the USA. According to a recent Wall Street Journal review of the vehicle (March 20, 2008) the Smart "fortwo" got less than rave reviews. However, I test drove a "fortwo" recently and found it to be an intriguing vehicle for those who are not in a hurry to get somewhere.
An article in Wired Magazine shows how the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft has morphed into more than just a game. According to Wired, some attributes of the World of Warcraft have begun to "...bear an eerie resemblance to actual terrorism, and analyzing terror tactics in Warcraft could prove more enlightening than current computer simulations used by counterterrorists."
Players have studied ways to cause the greatest amount of damage to the greatest number of people, and have begun to spread disease and death as part of the daily game play experience. (Oh joy! You can't even play a game anymore without someone trying to spoil it for you.)
Although there are clearly some very odd people (known sometimes as World of WarCraft Nerds) playing World of Warcraft (no offense intended if you happen to be one of these unusual people), this extraordinarily detailed simulation provided by World of Warcraft may be providing counterterror experts with just what they need to study terrorist behavior in a laboratory where even though people get killed, no one gets hurt.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the online community provided the world with the ultimate answer to terrorism. Perhaps the solution is to provide every terror group with access to World of Warcraft, and let them go at it to their hearts content.
