Posts Written by Paul Strauss

By carefully laser-cutting, then mashing up segments of vinyl records, designer Ishac Bershan manages to make (crudely) sampled music without need for a digitizer – just an unhappy needle.

It may be a production car selling for less than $50k, but the 2012 Camaro ZL1 still pulls off a rather impressive 7 minute, 41.27 second run of the famous Nürburgring-Nordschleife course.

A group of 8 to 10 year-olds performs Enter Sandman at the Buckleberry Beer Festival. We’re less perplexed by kids playing Metallica than why they’re playing at a BEER festival.

If you need some percolating and don’t care for coffee, ThinkGeek’s Caffeinated Chocolate Milk Straws have about 2.5 energy drinks worth of caffeine per straw; add milk and feel the power.

If you considered Operation Smile a success, then you’ll probably like this video Sloan Churman shot of his wife Sarah, born deaf, hearing her own voice the first time thanks to a cochlear implant.

There’s plenty of buzz about the new iPhone 4S, but we’re giving some love to the newly-enhanced Nano, with built-in fitness tracking, bigger home screen icons, and a ton of cool watch faces.

We’re not exactly fans of her wooden acting either, but Optimus the Malamute seems to be completely freaked out by Ms. Roberts and her horse-like appearance. Or is it the music in the background?

The world has lost a great innovator and a man who brought joy, insight, and knowledge to millions. This fitting video is for the man who taught us all to Think Differently. R.I.P., Steve Jobs.

What happens when you carefully interlace 1,000 wooden popsicle sticks, then flick just one of them? If you know what you’re doing – something pretty spectacular, as is evidenced by this video clip.

Check out this supercool functional Gears of War Lancer MK2 built by the Plumbrothers; it can shoot rubberbands and has a motorized chainsaw. The action in the vid begins at 1:30. (Thanks David!)

Good artists copy, great artists steal. We learn that yet again in this examination of the Wachowski’s 1999 classic The Matrix, which clearly found plenty of inspiration in many earlier films.

Two Ninjas battle to the death in this awesomely tight bit of stop-motion animation by Olivier Trudeau. It’s short, but sweet, and ends with style (and a splash of blood).

G-Power tunes the M3’s V8 with a supercharger, custom crankshaft and other mods, resulting in 720 horses and 516 pound-feet of torque. 0-to-62 speed is 3.7secs, and a top speed of 205mph.

The answers to how it began start in 1988, when young sisters Katie and Kristi befriend an invisible entity in their home, in Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s Paranormal Activity 3.

MonkeyLectric’s Mini Monkey Light M210 is a durable LED bike light that keeps you visible for evening rides; it straps to your spokes and displays full color 8-bit graphics on your spinning wheel.

Five minutes of fun: Rhett and Link play a goofy game of telephone with the YouTube captioning – not once, but twice – in their latest skit. We love how the computer interprets the word Ke$ha.

Have trouble getting out of bed? Well you could just get a louder alarm clock, or maybe your own personal rooster, or you could do what this guy does, and risk spinal trauma every morning.

BadLipReading creates vids with well dubbed nonsensical word substitutions, like this one here of the President talking about peanut butter, whipping pintos and tricking the bridesmaid. (Thanks Zeee!)

Artist Yutaka Sone carved this incredibly-detailed Manhattan map from a chunk of marble. It measures 104″ x 33″ x 22″, and weighs over 2.5 tons. At David Zwirner Gallery through 10/29.

A brilliant young boy searches for the lock that fits the key left by his father killed on 9/11. This one has Oscar written all over it – assuming the movie’s as good as the trailer.

Hark back to a time before touch screens, when we all relied on the cursor to do our bidding. Mike Mak’s Big Big Cursor works as well as your finger while preventing smudges and scratches.

There is a day when every meme must come to an end. Sadly, that day has arrived for poor Nyan Cat. There’s no pot of gold (or 8 more lives) at the end of this Pop-Tart cat’s rainbow – just a toaster.

Mike Doyle creates these brilliantly detailed, decrepit Victorian mansions to represent the fragility of life; he uses no foreign materials, just lots of tiny plastic LEGO bricks. (Thanks Don!)