Author: Gary Cutlack
Unsentimental Alton Towers coldly flogs off chunks of its Corkscrew rollercoaster on eBay
A reader who calls himself “Stretchy” has just alerted us to this awesome bit of history-making eBay activity – Alton Towers is flogging off the front car of its long-running Corkscrew rollercoaster.
The description over at Alton Towers’ site says you’re getting “The most unique Christmas present EVER!” if, by some incredible longshot, you happen to have a friend or family member who’s just asked for a bit of a closed rollercoaster as one of their Christmas presents this year…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Aerocar N103D "flying car" up for spares or repair
This innocent-looking little bubble car is, so the auction says, the first and only officially certified and legally usable flying car in the world.
The wings don’t fold out – they come in a separate trailer and need attaching, a process which apparently takes “five minutes”. Once you’re up, you can can soar above (and trying not to think about crashing into) the traffic below at a thrilling airspeed of 100mph…
VIDEO: Energy & Efficiency, episode 11
LCD, plasma, CRT, OLED – whatever television technology you currently use, they all have one thing in common – they use loads of electricity. Sure, it’s great having the light and company on these cold winter evenings, but at what price? Too much!
So, here I’ll show you how to watch TV for FREE. You save energy, the world carries on for a bit longer before becoming a burned-out husk full of cockroaches and everyone gets to enjoy guilt-free, environmentally-sound television.
This system works best if you live in a packed area of low-rise housing…
Cut your neck open on a barbed wire fence all year round, with the Ice Meister SLICER
If you’re young and still flexible enough to find the idea of (a) being outside in the cold and (b) hurtling down a hill really fast sitting on a piece of plastic enjoyable, here’s the answer to your extreme sports prayers – a sled that works just as well on grass as on snow.
The Ice Meister SLICER is a grass-based sled that’ll keep your bottom aching and your knuckles freshly grazed all year round, thanks to its removable sliders that users take out, freeze, then reattach…
Microsoft stole the Xbox 360 logo from a bunch of 17th century alien visitors
The full, bewildering explanation of that headline is as follows. A 1997 documentary entitled Area 51: Alien Interview featured the sketch reproduced below, which some people on the internet on a slow news day like today, have taken to be a representation of the Xbox 360 logo (inset).
The sketch portrays the supposed events of November 4, 1697, when the people of Hamburg saw “two glowing wheels” in the sky and, presumably, got a bit annoyed because they were hoping to get a Wii for Christmas not an Xbox 360.
We don’t believe this to be a true version of events. The Xbox 360 logo was actually…
New Doctor Who hitting iTunes – one series a week popping up during December
Doctor Who, a show which chronicles the increasingly camp adventures of a time travelling man who gets his clothes from a Help The Aged sale rack and solves everything from interplanetary war to tooth decay by shouting while pointing a screwdriver at a broken numeric keypad, is coming to iTunes.
BBC worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC that’s allowed to sell things for money, is dumping every episode of the new Who on Apple’s shopping system. Episodes from the first series of the modern Who should be ready for buying and downloading today…
Guitar Hero makes music look easy – 2.5 million extra kids learning instruments thanks to video games
Hear that sound? That’s the slow, disjointed, tortured noise made by 2.5 million 14-year-old boys currently trying to work out the opening chords of ‘Smoke on the Water’ on their new proper guitars.
It’s all thanks to the success of music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which have triggered a massive surge in the number of kids learning to play musical instruments. The Times says a survey by Youth Music found that over half of…
Sony UK sort of cuts price of PlayStation3 – starts offering £40 discount on 40GB model
If you really, really must have a PlayStation3 right now, you might want to buy yourself one via Sony’s online shop SonyStyle.co.uk – as it’s currently offering a £40 discount on its cheapest model.
The deal takes the RRP of the Blu-ray-playing “entry level” 40GB machine down to an almost reasonable £249 including free delivery, with a nearly tempting…
The μTRON Keyboard – a terrifying new form of Japanese brain torture
As if typing isn’t a difficult and tiresome enough chore that only exists because voice and brain recognition technology is STILL rubbish, here’s something to make it harder. The μTRON Keyboard. A keyboard that’s been chopped up and rearranged. An invention that could halve office productivity over night.
The μTRON Keyboard comes in two pieces, with the space bar relegated…
Xbox 360 "Jasper" hardware variants spotted in the wild – efficient and with built-in memory for game saves
Microsoft’s been fiddling with the internal organs of its Xbox 360 again, with the long-rumoured “Jasper” hardware re-jig apparently rolling out across the world right now.
The new Xbox 360 – as found and disassembled by a user on Xbox-Scene – features a lower-Wattage PSU (150W instead of 175W) that’ll keep Greenpeace happy when it does its next name & shame list.
But the most thrilling enhancement for you, humble end user, is the addition of 256MB of internal flash memory…
